


30 Visions

by illwynd



Series: 30 Day OTP Porn Challenge [1]
Category: Norse Religion & Lore, Thor (Comics), Thor (Movies), Thor - All Media Types
Genre: Age Difference, Angst, Animal Play, Bad Puns, Bondage, Corsetry, Crossdressing, Crying, Dark, Dom/sub, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Exhibitionism, Figging, Fluff and Angst, Gags, Genital Piercing, M/M, Mind Control, Multi, Nipple Piercings, Nipple Play, Oral Sex, Praise Kink, Public Humiliation, Riding Crops, Sexual Dysfunction, Shame, Sibling Incest, Spanking, Temperature Play, Threesome - M/M/M, Vampire AU, Watersports
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-10-05
Updated: 2015-05-13
Packaged: 2017-12-28 11:30:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 46,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/991522
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/illwynd/pseuds/illwynd
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Various Loki/Thor ficlets written for the 30 day OTP porn challenge</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Cave, a Road, a Room in an Inn

**Author's Note:**

> Each chapter will be a separate fill, with individual summary and warnings. All originally posted to [my tumblr](http://illwynd.tumblr.com/tagged/30-day-OTP-porn-challenge). Feedback adored here or there. As you can tell, the "30 days" thing means nothing to me.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This one is myth!Thor/Loki. Also contains mention of Loki/Odin and Thor/Sif.
> 
> Prompt: Explaining their relationship to a disapproving third party
> 
> Warnings: age gap and insinuations of incestuousness

Loki was beyond amused.

This was in part because he and Thor had only just crossed the far borders into Asgard once more and found an inn in which to rest and quench their thirst, and they had barely had time to settle themselves at a table in the smoky dimness of the back of the room before another guest appeared before them, asking to share their table. The rest of Loki’s amusement came from the fact of who it was—he recognized the man immediately, despite or perhaps because of the ragged traveling cloak drawn down low over his face. He suspected it took Thor an extra moment, but that was all right; it was only his father.

The inn bustled around them, but its noise blurred into insignificance as the weather-worn Allfather of the gods pulled out the wooden chair across from them and sat down, pushing back his hood, folding his arms on the table, and fixing them both under his piercing, one-eyed stare.

Loki could feel Thor squirming beside him already, like a scolded child even though the scolding had not yet begun, but Thor had to have known this would happen—he had at least known that the “uncle” he had gone adventuring with was no longer in his father’s favor. And they both knew that the rumors were true, of just how much could be spied from the high seat of Hlidskjalf. And, well… Loki thought back to their night in the cave, when a long course of subtle seduction of the thunder god had at last succeeded… it seemed likely enough that Odin had gotten an eyeful.

As he only had the one, this must have been a hardship.

Loki smiled as Odin’s hand closed around a cup of mead that had not been there a moment before and had been brought by no servant. “To what do we owe the honor of your presence, Grimnir?” he asked, innocent.

The single grey eye glared at him meaningfully before turning aside to take in the red-bearded chin and somewhat doubtful frown beside him. It was an exchange that Loki watched eagerly: oh yes, Odin had definitely gotten an eyeful, and now he was having to look at his favorite son in an entirely new light, and not one that pleased him.

Years ago Loki had likewise taken his own second look at Odin’s son, but him it _had_ pleased. When he had first come to Asgard, when they had first met, Thor had been but a young god—a tempest on legs, a wild and unrestrained storm. A torrential creature of both rage and joy. But still, to Loki, little more than a child. Loki had been shocked when the youngster became instantly fascinated with him, for Loki was at that point a stranger. An oddity that Thor’s father had picked up on the road.

He and Odin had mingled their blood on the empty pathways of the wilds. They had vowed loyalty to each other, for somehow in that chance meeting in the springtime of the worlds, they had each met a kindred spirit. Someone who understood him. They were matched in wit, and when Loki watched Odin’s one eye gazing wryly at the ever-shifting world as if it were all but mists to him to be pierced and waved away with a gesture, Loki had felt sure that here was someone who saw the same as he did. Together they strode easily across borderlands, tramped in places where none before had dared pass. At nights they played the oldest game, the fire in their cave sunk to sparking cinders, and neither gave a care to the rules—though Odin always seemed delighted at how Loki broke them, all the while insisting that his own moves merely _evaded_ those same boundaries. And when Odin at last had headed toward the realm that he called home, he had been so enamored as to actually invite Loki to come with him. And Loki—Loki who was no longer of Jotunheim—had been foolish enough to accept.

But all that was past, and Loki was no longer a stranger. And now when he went wandering outside of Asgard’s bounds, it was with Odin’s son instead.

Odin’s eye completed its assessment of his son and swiveled back to Loki. “This is not precisely what I had in mind,” he said, in falsely calm tones, “when I brought you, a Jotun, to Asgard to live among us.”

“Wasn’t it?” Loki laughed.

“It was not.”

Loki folded his hands before him. “Ah. Well.  I had no idea. Fate does so often seem to hold surprises for us all, though; perhaps you will simply have to get used to it.”

Odin again looked back and forth between the two of them, though it was undeniably Loki to whom he spoke. “I disapprove of this. Of what you are doing. And _I am the Allfather_.”

Loki tilted his head aside. Odin should really know better than that—when had anyone’s mere disapproval ever stopped Loki from doing anything? It was particularly baffling that Odin thought he would give this up because of it. Out of all the things that had befallen him since coming to Asgard, winning Thor’s affections was the one Loki regretted the least.

That young tempest of a god… he was nothing like his father, and now he was grown, with enough years that Loki could hardly be accused of taking advantage (even if—and the thought did please him—perhaps he was, in a way). The cave had been the first time, yet they had been moving toward this for years.

_There on the edges of Utgard, the furthest wilds, lands Loki had known so long ago that the memory was now grey and thin. The ground shaking beneath them where they bedded down: a million tons of stone above their heads, a few long heartbeats of terror as grit rained down upon them and the stone creaked and roared, and the laughing relief afterward._

_“Were you affrighted, storm god?” Loki had teased, and Thor, guileless and honest, had admitted he had been._

_Loki had rolled closer and dropped kisses on both his bearded cheeks. “Uncle Loki will protect you; think you that my seidr would be enough to stop the earth from quaking and bringing down the mountain upon us?”_

_Thor had blushed then, and Loki had quickly ascertained the reason why. As Loki had long guessed, Thor did want him. And yet, in some way, he considered them kin._

_Loki had smiled and carded his fingers through red-gold hair. “You and I could mingle our blood as well… if you would rather call me brother than uncle.”_

_Thor’s mouth had fallen open at that, in scandalized shock. Yet Loki could feel Thor’s heartbeat racing in his chest when he put his hand to it. And wide blue eyes watching him to see what he would dare to do next now that they lay so close beside each other, Loki practically draped across Thor’s larger body._

_Loki did not want Thor to be frightened. So Loki had kissed him, gently at first, then deeper, when Thor proved himself eager to accept…_

Odin again shot piercing gazes at them both before speaking more forcefully. “I do not approve of this.”

Loki shrugged. “So? And what am I meant to do about that?”

“What I mean for you to do,” Odin hissed, “is to stay away from my son!”

Loki felt Thor go tense beside him; in secret, under the table, he put a reassuring hand to Thor’s knee (and if he did not in fact let it crawl higher… well, under ordinary circumstances he would have. Perhaps it slipped his mind.) Then he leaned across the table and dropped his voice. “But what if your son does not want me to stay away from him, hm?”

“My son is young and foolish,” Odin said darkly, and this was enough at last to send an offended jolt through the thunder god.

“Father…” Thor began in protest.

 “He’s right,” Loki murmured, cutting him off yet giving his knee an invisible squeeze. “You _are_ young.”

Once Odin’s lip would have twitched upward at such a remark from him, at the exchange of wit. But now he only glared in answer. “My son has a bride already and has no need of your attentions.”

Loki could not stop the cough of laughter. Had he been drinking he might have choked.

“Sif?” Thor said, looking crestfallen. “But I do not neglect her. I do not see why I cannot…”

“He is the Allfather,” Loki whispered to him (none too quietly, in truth) out of the corner of his mouth. “He knows nothing of seeking pleasure or companionship in more than one pair of arms, naturally.”

But the first flicker of true anger shone out in Odin’s grey eye then. “You, Loki, will cause my son to be marked with the name of ergi,” Odin said, voice low as a deadly threat.

At that, Loki put his chin on his hand and grinned across the table at his old friend. “Will I?”

_Loki had been surprised, if pleased, at that. The younger god had let Loki have him. He had been more than willing. There in the cave he had confessed how much and for how long he had wanted the trickster to take him. He had stammered out the tale of his youthful infatuation: how exciting Loki had always seemed to him, how unlike anyone else in Asgard._

_“Well, you were right about that,” Loki had replied with an easy smile._

_Thor had been so eager, and hearing him speak his fantasies would have made Loki want him even if he hadn’t already. But he had kept his mask of calm composure, his cunning fingers working on a particularly tricky knot in his companion’s lacings, his ears filled with Thor’s stuttered vows._

_Only a few minutes later he’d had Thor’s heels digging into the backs of his legs, the smattering of red-gold hair on Thor’s broad chest rubbing against Loki’s naked skin, and Thor had still been babbling out his wide-eyed stream of thought as Loki took him, as Loki mouthed wet kisses along his throat to feel the rumble within, as Loki’s hands stroked his body, scratching and soothing, in all the clever little ways he knew. Thor had still been babbling, at least until Loki pressed deeper, shifted the angle, and robbed Thor of words._

_Beneath him, Thor arched and groaned; around him, Thor clenched and writhed. So strong he was, so unconstrained, so beautiful, and Loki only laughed and nuzzled against the young god’s warm, bearded cheek as he fucked him, murmuring that he had wanted Thor for just as long, and that now that he had him, he would show Thor every trick he had. He would show Thor just how strange and exciting he was._

_In a cave in the wilds, Thor caused thunder because of what Loki did to him, and Loki was not sure if he had ever enjoyed himself more._

 “He will only be marked with that name if you go around speaking it,” Loki continued idly, the grin turning to a sneer, and he had trouble restraining himself from rolling his eyes. _Ergi_ ; yet another piece of Aesir ridiculousness that Loki had ignored from the start—ridiculousness he had not even guessed at before he came to Asgard. But what a shock that realization had been, with his once-friend standing back and allowing the derisive rumors to spread, without a word of warning or apology. “The rest of Asgard will be quick enough to assume the opposite, as we both know well—they know all about _me_ by now, don’t they?”

That had been only a small part of what had first made Loki begin to believe he had made a mistake in following the wandering As home like a lost child. Like a lonesome creature crying for scraps.

And the older god looked no more regretful now than he had then, his one eye flashing upon them both and the weather-worn sleeves of his garb folded calmly on the table. In fact he did not seem to notice the jab but instead looked back to his son.

“Thor,” Odin said, looking the thunder god in the eye and taking on his most wise and fatherly aspect, every word filled with firm and sighing patience as of a parent attempting to give their child more credit than they truly deserve, “I am not sure what possessed you to do this, yet I am willing to overlook it if you give me your word to forget about this dalliance. Indeed I sympathize with your error. It is one I might have made myself. But this one is not for you.”

Loki had to admire the careful phrasing of that.

Thor, however, seemed not to notice, and he did not give in so easily. “But why, Father? He was your friend, why do you now…”

And Loki watched with pleasure as Odin failed to completely hide his rueful wince, and he watched with even greater fascination as it became clear that certain belated realizations were beginning to fall into place in Thor’s mind. All through the discussion Thor had watched as his father and his “uncle” sparred with words and implications, each exchange speaking of their history together (and oh, Loki wondered, however had Thor missed that? Hadn’t everyone in Asgard known?). So Loki watched in fascination as the first touch of anger came to Thor’s brow.

Clearly, he was less than pleased to be stuck in the middle of their spat, much less to then be treated like a chastened child with no voice of his own, and he glanced over to Loki.

Loki shrugged and gave his knee yet another hidden squeeze, very nearly apologetic. And Thor frowned at him like a storm but then turned back to his father a moment later, gathering himself up proudly, if awkwardly.

“I do not understand why you say I should not be with him. Even if you no longer wish for his company, I do not understand why I must not—”

“Because he will end us all!” Odin roared, fists clenched on the table, the force of his yell bringing him to his feet to tower over his son. The sizzling of the air was near enough to break the impenetrable silence that surrounded their table in the corner of the inn; heads turned, absentminded, as if at a sound barely heard.

It was true, of course. It had been foretold and Loki could feel the truth of it in his bones, could feel it deeply enough that after the seeress had come, after Odin had confronted him, he had bitten his lip for one moment before looking his once-friend in the eye and answering that _yes,_ he _would_ do all those things. One day his wolf-son would devour Odin. One day his serpent-son would strike at Thor. And one day his own mad self would stand upon the field of death, screeching with laughter, eyes wet with poison tears.

There was no way to stop it. It was true. But for a little while Loki had near completely forgotten about it, because it was difficult, somehow, to let that knowledge be overlaid with the image of the adoring reverence with which the young thunder god looked at him. No one else had ever gazed upon him so, and Loki did not want to believe that feeling would ever depart completely. But he knew it would.

_After they had finished (the first time, at least—Loki made sure to debauch his “nephew” thoroughly before bringing him home), Loki had lain perched atop Thor’s broad bulk and, between lazy caresses, he chattered to him aimlessly about the rest of their road, inventing details where he could not recall them. Then, in the middle of his tales, Thor asked why Loki had left his own homeland, so long ago._

_Loki fell silent. It_ was _so_ _long ago—he could claim he did not remember. He could claim it was not important. A whim he’d followed ever since._

_“I… I had no choice,” he heard himself say. “I was no longer welcome there.”_

_Thor frowned, uncomprehending, a child hearing passed-down tales of ancient woe. “Why not?”_

_Loki gave him a little smile, for courage. “The Aesir are not the only ones who trust in their seers’ words, nor the only ones who would avert their own fates while insisting all are tied to them.”_

_A moment passed in silence._

_“When it happens, Loki…”_

_Loki put a hand over his mouth. He wanted to hear no promises, no lies. “When it happens, you will want to punish me for it. You will hate me for all I will have done, and I will likely deserve it. You will have forgotten this. You will follow the only truth that matters: what you feel in that moment. As will I.”_

_It was clear that Thor ached to argue. To say it would not be like that, that he would not want to, even if he did it. That he could never hate him. But Loki had not let him try. He could think of far better things to be doing, alone together in a cave in the wilds, and he made a point of showing a few of them to Thor to get his mind off the future._

Thor stared at his father, the roared accusation surely still echoing in his ears, and Loki watched, curious, as he met his father’s gaze… and did not bow to it. The thunder god was young and foolish. He was headstrong and naïve and in many ways unwise, relying on fortitude and strength and a willing heart to get him through where his wisdom failed. He had little inborn art for the games Loki and Odin were most skilled at playing. He was nothing at all like his father, a fact for which Loki was forever grateful, and now he dared to stare Odin down.

“Perhaps he will. And we will destroy him as well, after confining and tormenting him, if the fates are true. So how does what I do now make any of that any worse?”

Odin gave the wry smile of one whose opponent has at long last risen to a basic challenge. “All things come to ruin, and thus we do as we please while our happiness lasts, is that so?” It was spoken in such a tone that meant he considered agreement impossible.

Yet Thor stuck out his bearded chin, defiant. “Yes,” he said, voice fervent. “If I must chain him later, then I would hold him now.”

For a moment, there was silence, not even the dulled hush of the tavern humming around them.

Then the Allfather made a sound of disgust and rose to his feet, apparently deciding that he would go little further with this argument in this place, at this time. And it was wonderful, Loki thought, the satisfaction of feeling Odin’s furious, one-eyed gaze upon him as he left them to each other, though Loki felt no need to turn away from the beautiful, bristling sight of his young lover to watch his once-friend depart.

When at last the sounds of the inn came through to them clearly again, the clatter of dozens of drunken Aesir whiling away the hours of their immortal lives, Loki took a gulp of his long-neglected ale and grinned.

“You and my father were…?” Thor stammered out, pained, after a moment. To be completely honest he looked slightly ill. Loki carefully did not laugh.

“Yes, a long time ago. It doesn’t matter. I like you better.”

Thor seemed to remember his own drink, then, taking a long draught as if that might wash away the thought. And perhaps it worked, for when he had finished he was able to look over at Loki again without alarm.

“Well, at least that’s done with now,” Loki said, with a shrug. “It is always a little nerve-wracking at first, finding out what the family thinks.”

Thor nodded in agreement.

And Loki realized he still had his hand on Thor’s knee. Or, rather, Thor’s thigh, now. “So you admit again you were afraid, thunder god?” he asked, a little nearer, a little lower so that the surrounding patrons might not hear.

Thor looked at him, wide-eyed, but with a clear pleasure at how his lover could think of such things even at a time like that.

Loki grinned. “Perhaps we’re not quite done adventuring, wouldn’t you say?”

_Not a cave but a room in an inn, and a thunder god whose heart was still pounding from defying his father, on his back on the soft mattress, his hands in Loki’s hair._

_A wild and unrestrained storm god with his arms wrapped around Loki, kissing him and making all the foolish promises that Loki had once clapped a hand over his mouth to keep from hearing, yet now he didn’t bother. Let him speak them, if his young heart wanted._

_Odin had tried to warn him off. And Thor had decided to love him anyway._

_Loki kissed him back and laughed against his lips. And he thought, for the first time: if I must be chained later… you may have been worth it, child._


	2. Leather

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loki scepters Thor during the events of The Avengers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: latex/leather
> 
> Warnings: mind control

It was easy to fall. Thor had wanted to fall. He had wanted to, no matter what his mind had said, no matter what reason argued. In his heart, he wanted it, and when the tip of Loki’s glowing scepter had prodded against his chest Thor had leaned into it, sighing.

“Brother.”

That had been the last, pained word he uttered while he still had no choice but to fight against himself, and the first beloved name to slip from his throat after, in a breath like a vow. Loki had stepped back then, appraising, eyes narrowed, as if he was somehow uncertain that it would have worked.

Thor had been too overwhelmed with the sudden sense of relief to reassure him.

Thor had wanted this. He knew it in that moment. The terrible tension that had been wrapped around something within him, wound tight like a string ready to snap, had been released. Now he could relax again. Now he knew he had been right all along: fighting Loki had hurt him, and it was because _this_ was what was right. He was supposed to be here beside his brother, trusting him, obeying him. Anyone who did not understand that would fall before them, for Loki deserved to take the throne of Midgard, if that was what he chose.

So Thor did his brother’s bidding and when Loki did not call upon him, he waited, glad to be allowed to remain at Loki’s side. He did not ever again want to be parted from the one he most dearly loved.

That was the other thing Thor had realized as the scepter touched his chest. The sight of Loki as he was now frightened him somewhere deep in his soul. The brother he had lost had not looked like this; Thor remembered a slim shape that slipped in and out of shadows like a black trout in a dappled stream. Thor remembered a whisper of counsel at his back, a cautious hand on his arm, keeping to its place and station. Princely armor edged in dull gold. But this Loki, though gaunt and hollow-eyed, was an ascending king.

He was so fearsome that sometimes all Thor could think to do was to fall to his knees before him.

It had taken weeks before he had worked up the courage. And the first time he had tried, hands to his brother’s chest, Loki had given him again that wary, distrustful look and spun away from him, leather tails of his coat flying, going off to take care of some other detail of his conquest. But the blue light in Thor’s eyes had shown him something that he had never seen before: it had shown him how they were always meant to be. So he was persistent. And at last Loki gave in.

Thor suspected what finally won him this victory was that he was the only one in this realm who knew properly how to serve an Asgardian prince. He was the only one who knew what sort of obedience Loki was once accustomed to, the only one who—well, to put it simply—understood the intricacies of his armor enough to help him with it as a servant should. And no matter how lowly, it was a task Thor loved, imagining himself as his brother’s squire. He liked the weight of Loki’s helm in his hands as he set it reverentially in its place. He liked to kneel low to remove Loki’s boots, knowing that his brother’s knife-sharp eyes were watching him as he paused to kiss the inner calf of each before urging Loki to step so he could slip them off. He liked to nuzzle against the long, splayed raven-tails of Loki’s coat, breathing in the scent of leather and sparks and concrete dust that clung after battles on this rough-hewn world. Thor liked the calming ritual motions of unfastening buckles and straps, leaving the scent of leather on his hands as he lifted away each piece of gleaming armor while Loki held his silence, imperious and imposing.

There was a time Thor would have knelt thus for no one, would have never given his brother such respect—before he had seen Loki as he was now—and Thor liked to imagine with each garment of supple black leather, with each heavy plate of armor, that he was also lifting away those memories that lay so heavy on his mind. He would make up for those years and set the example for this whole realm, show them how well his brother deserved to be worshipped.

And each such time there came a moment in the process when he had Loki’s undertunic in his hands, had Loki standing before him in only his trousers, his pale, sculpted chest rising and falling with each full breath, the richness of leather clinging to his skin. Each such time Loki would eye him as if he wasn’t sure what he wanted, as if Thor might still turn out to be his enemy, as if it was Thor who was the realm’s dark king and not Loki himself. Something Thor could not possibly think of as _fear_ flashing in his gaze, a burst of lightning in a nighttime storm, gone almost as soon as it was seen and replaced with its opposite, its negative image seared into the retinas.

It was not a look Thor liked to see there—it made him uneasy, and in nervousness he reached out to unbuckle Loki’s belt as well.

“Let me, brother… make use of me…” he murmured.

The first time they had done this he had been sure Loki would use him harshly, have him gulping air between strokes, nostrils flaring, eyes watering as his throat was filled, shivering at the hands yanking him back and forth by the tender roots of his hair. He had been ready for it. He had been _hard_ for it, wanting, for this was how they were supposed to be, and what he most wanted was to prove himself worthy of his place at the foot of Loki’s throne. He wanted to know that of all Loki’s army he was the most prized, the one Loki coveted most fiercely. He was desperate to show all his devotion. He wanted Loki—his dark and fearsome king, his beloved brother, one and the same—to rule him and to love him and to never find him lacking.

But in fact it always began with Thor kneeling between Loki’s spread thighs, pinned under the weight of Loki’s gaze, sucking pleadingly on his brother’s cock. He tried to focus on the thickness of it, the heat on his tongue, the taste of leather and salt on Loki’s skin. He tried not to think of how Loki sprawled, kingly, above him, watching him, aloof and dark. He rested his hands against white hips (not grasping, not holding, for he was Loki’s servant now, focused on his brother’s pleasure and not his own desires) and he tried to be as good as he could be—his only relief came when Loki began to pant, when his hips began to move and when a lazy hand dropped to weave in with Thor’s hair, guiding him at last.

Relief, yet not, for again and again Loki had put him in his place thus, yet it never seemed to soothe him. Not even when Loki had taken to pulling him off at the end to come across his face, painting his cheeks and chin in a smear of white—it always ended there, with Thor painfully, achingly hard in his pants and almost sick with heartache. With Loki pushing him away and watching as Thor squirmed there before him on the floor.

Loki never took any more than that. He never took Thor to his bed, never made Thor his, never let Thor show him how much he wanted to give him whatever he desired—and Thor did want. He had never wanted anything more. The blue light in his eyes had shown him that; he wanted to have Loki in his arms and he wanted his brother to sate himself with Thor’s submission and with his body. He wanted Loki to destroy him and put him back together only to destroy him again. He wanted Loki to make him cry out his name as he came, so that all the mortal realm would know. Thor crouched at his brother’s feet, nearly trembling with the force of his need, gazing up into his brother’s face, loving him, _wanting—_

But Loki never did more than tuck himself silently back in to the leather of his trousers and watch with those same cold, wary eyes as Thor grew strangely ashamed, as uneasiness overtook the hollow of his heart, as he tried with one hand to wipe himself clean.


	3. The Other Loki

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thor and Loki have only been together for a few years when a future!Loki appears before them and wants to spend the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Double penetration
> 
> Contains: filthy threesome porn

The other Loki was clearly mad. He had appeared out of nowhere, walking out of the mists one evening, and he had found the two of them in the corridor as they departed from the common room of the out-of-the-way tavern to slip back to the bedchamber for which they’d thrown down a handful of good coin when they’d arrived.

It had been a surprising meeting. Thor’s first reaction was to think that this was something Loki had done by magic—he had watched the newcomer with pleased curiosity in his eyes, waiting to see what the rest of the trick would be.

“He’s not my doing,” Loki had admitted in a quick whisper, reaching over to grab Thor’s wrist in a sudden abundance of caution. “But I do think we should find out where he’s come from.”

The other Loki was clearly mad, and there was a deadly light about him, and a shadow trailing off him like the wings of a vast black cloak billowing in a breeze, yet he was all smiles as they led him into the little room before anyone else could catch this strange sight. All smiles and easy explanations that explained nothing—Loki stayed mostly quiet as he listened. Thor trusted the newcomer. Loki did not, but he could not deny that it _was_ him. He could sense that: it was _him_ , not some false construct. It was him, older. Older, and dark, and mad. And no less silver-tongued. No less charming or clever in his words.

Later, Loki would not be sure how exactly it happened. But somehow, this other Loki insinuated himself into their bed.

The other Loki explained that he’d known they would be here because he remembered how this particular tavern, where few questions were asked, had become their refuge. He explained that he’d come this night because, likewise, he remembered this visit, from himself. He’d given the fascinated Thor a sly little smile when he said it, like a shared secret. And before Loki knew, his brother (without stopping to think, without looking to him, only leaping at a chance that presented itself, as eagerly and foolishly as he had ever leapt into a fray) had happily agreed.

That was how Loki wound up on his back with Thor riding him and the other Loki fucking Thor’s mouth above him. Loki could not deny how appealing that was, of course, being able to watch such a scene while Thor eased down onto him, hot and slick, settling in with a whimper around the length in his mouth that surely must have set the other Loki’s blood ablaze. Then they’d really begun. Thor always liked sucking Loki’s cock, but like this, filled by his lover at both ends, he was more enthusiastic than ever, if a bit less coordinated. Part of that was how the other Loki had his fingers tangled in Thor’s hair and pulled him back and forth, forcing Thor to fight to keep up, to try to keep his rhythm as he rode. Loki could only stare—and grab his hips to guide him—as Thor gulped and slurped and moaned, bliss on his face.

But the other Loki it seemed had more than this in mind—eventually he hissed and pulled away. Loki could tell he had been close, could see the heavy rise and fall of his chest as his saliva-wet prick hung in the air as he let his impending climax recede, holding off on purpose. His eyes flashing down at them both, watching as they enjoyed each other for a moment as he stood back, panting—but his gaze tracked mostly on Thor, whose mouth now gasped open, brow drawn tight, focused completely on the cock inside him. He flicked only a few glances toward the younger Loki, as an afterthought, almost dismissive.

Loki could not stop himself from grasping Thor’s hips a little tighter in his hands.

When the other Loki had recovered himself or finished his contemplation, though, he had looked at them anew, and he had approached, circling around them until he stood behind Thor’s back, and there he dropped to his knees. He put his arms around Thor’s abdomen from behind, put his head aside Thor’s as Thor felt him there and sighed back against him, welcoming. The other Loki nuzzled against his neck briefly then met Loki’s eyes with a look of dark glee, one eyebrow raised in query.

“Do you think he can take it?”

Loki took in the picture the two of them made: the casual menace of his elder self, and how innocent and warm Thor looked in his possessive embrace. After a heartbeat, though, Thor’s eyes widened, excited, as he understood what the elder Loki was proposing (Thor could never resist the opportunity of such an intense experience, Loki knew. And Loki’s magical doubles had never been quite substantial enough for this).

“Because I think he can take whatever we give him. I think he always will, gladly, whether pleasure or pain,” the other Loki whispered, and Loki felt himself go breathless as his elder self’s hand dropped from the nipple it had been toying with to instead wrap around Thor’s hard prick, giving it a few languid strokes that made Thor groan and writhe and force out his choked “yes” from between wet, red lips.

At that acquiescence, the other Loki had kissed Thor’s neck once more and then put his hands to his shoulders, bending Thor forward until he was perched on his elbows. The new position pressed them together near enough that if Loki but leaned up a little, they could kiss. Thor looked at him, grinning foolishly, until Loki did just that, making a laugh burble up from the depths of Thor’s chest. The laugh, though, cut off and Thor’s eyes filled with bright anticipation when Loki felt the press of another cock, freshly slicked, against his own, striving for entrance into Thor’s heat.

At first Loki was not sure, really, if it could be done, and it was a slow and… at times a bit awkward process as they tried. Everything was slippery, tight and only growing tighter as he and the other Loki both tried to work their cocks inside Thor at once, with filthy little wet sounds as their pricks slipped and slid against each other. Thor, after a moment, pressed back onto his hands, halfway between them, holding himself still to let them do as they would. His eyes were wide and wild; he gasped heavily when one or the other slipped into or out of him. Loki could only imagine the stretch, the sensations that must be assaulting him; he looked as if it was nearly too much for even his godly flesh, as if he were poised at the edge of a cliff, about to come apart from the impending fall. By the time they were both firmly inside and trying to work out a rhythm for their thrusts a sweat had sprung up across his skin, glistening.

The other Loki, bent above him, seemed to thrill at this, at Thor’s subdued struggle; his eyes were ablaze as he took in every twitch and moan from the thunder god speared between them.

Loki (despite the undeniable pleasure) frowned. It had only been a few years. This other him… _he_ must know that. It had only been a few years since he and Thor had slipped into each other’s beds for the first time, each suffering his own agonies of shame and doubt and disbelief before they had somehow—somehow—learned their mutual secret. In the first year, they had been together few enough times that Loki could remember each one clearly, and could remember each time swearing to each other that it would not happen again—it was perverse, it was dangerous, it was… oh, but that had always been a lie. They wanted each other too badly to care. And now, after a few years, they had come to the point that Loki felt little shame at their trysts, meeting at this tavern or finding a lonesome spot out in the broad and shadowy wilderness in which no eyes could find them. He retained only a sensible caution (to make up for the moments in which Thor lacked it) and the reverent care of a new lover who does not yet quite believe his good fortune.

This other Loki, though, was clearly far beyond that. As Loki watched, his teeth sunk into the meat of Thor’s shoulder, reckless. His hands clawed at Thor’s body between them, and Loki was near enough to see the way his eyes glinted and glittered with each choked sound he drew from Thor’s mouth, absorbing them and drawing them into his darkness like a void swallowing distant stars. This other Loki grasped Thor’s body like a possession, with sharp, calculated caresses from a hand that knew every weakness, wicked touches that made Thor buck in surprise, eyes going glassy. At any moment, Loki thought, surely he would go too far, grow too rough—yet Thor only pressed back desperately toward the one slipping him sweet licks of pain, indeed drinking down everything he was given…

Loki could only watch, heart caught in his throat and breath stopped in a shudder of obscene lust at the way the elder Loki manhandled Thor and the way it made Thor clench around them both, made Thor’s thick cock leak precome all across Loki’s belly.

But then the Loki above gave him a crooked grin full of challenge and a welcoming nod—amid that strange, counterpoint friction as their cocks rubbed tightly together—as if to suggest that, as they both had equal right to enjoy Thor’s body, they should likewise share in equal generosity to bring Thor off. And Loki could only obey as the Loki above directed the unison of motions, and he lost himself in the moment as well.

He imagined that Thor would never forget that, being impaled upon two cocks, stretched by them until he ached and with two sets of hands seeking out his every pleasure, two mouths kissing and sucking upon every piece of his skin they could reach. Being sandwiched between the twinned bodies of his lover, damp and heated from their efforts upon him. Having two Lokis to whisper their intention to together fill him with hot gushes of spend until he dripped with it as never before, two Lokis—one to kiss him as he panted and whined and begged them to do as they vowed, another to laugh and nip at the tender spot on his nape. Two Lokis to hold him steady as he came apart at last with a long, shuddering whimper, his body writhing and twisting between them, his cock throbbing desperately as it spilled against Loki’s skin.

Thor practically collapsed upon him after, little shivers still coursing through his big frame as he nuzzled blindly for kisses and murmured nonsense words. The dual fucking had rendered him half insensate (if this was the effect, Loki thought, he would have to find a way to _make_ his doubles substantial enough).

Loki could not deny that he was glad that it was _his_ arms into which Thor sank. But his elder self did not seem to care. He did not slump beside them in spent bliss, did not seem to have any desire to relax in their bed; with no more than a moment’s pause to get his breath back he clambered shakily to his feet and pulled on his clothes (Loki noticed again that, while the style was clearly still his, they were unlike any he had ever worn, showy and wild—more sign, still, of the distance from which this Loki came), turning away from the naked pair on the bed.

_He means to simply disappear now,_ Loki thought, wondering. He could see it in the way his elder self did not turn to look at them, dismissing them both from his sight, as if they no longer mattered now that he’d gotten what he came for, as if he could not bear to let himself linger here in the past. At any moment he would be gone, without a word of explanation or farewell. And well he might; from the time he had appeared, he had given them little of himself, evading their questions so skillfully that even Loki had sometimes not noticed, but more importantly nudging them away from certain lines of conversation. They knew nothing of him, except that he was Loki, and in a moment it would not matter because he would be gone.

Loki forced himself to speak before that could happen. He cleared his throat. He had to know.

“What has happened to your Thor so that you must come here to have mine?”

The other Loki turned sharply, and in his eyes Loki could see all the quick, easy answers that came to his silver tongue. He could see them all fall away as well; they were both Loki, and he would see through his own lies.

And he could see that nothing had happened—would happen—to Thor at all. But something had happened _between_ them. Something so terrible that Thor would no longer have him. Loki watched as grief and bitter anger and at last hopeless longing washed through his elder self’s eyes in a cold flood.

Yet when the other Loki answered, his voice was steady, giving nothing away. “Nothing. I was meant to be here, so I came.”

Loki was glad for the lie, for Thor was still draped bonelessly across him and had not seen that look. And whatever it was that the other Loki had not said, it had not happened yet. Maybe _would_ not happen, now that Loki knew.

Then the other Loki did slip away, back into the mists of shadow that lay just beyond ordinary vision, where the eyes could not follow.

It was a few minutes more before Thor stirred. “Did he go?” he mumbled sleepily, pulling away from Loki’s chest still sticky with sweat. The only signs that the other Loki had been there were written in red across Thor’s skin—Loki touched one lightly with his fingertips, which made Thor hiss a little, though it did not seem a displeased sound.

Loki had given himself much to think about.

“I suppose he did,” he answered at last.


	4. Giant-Hunter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “This cannot have been what you intended,” Loki said, amused, to the thoroughly chilled Asgardian in his arms.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Awkward sex / things that don't go as planned.
> 
> Contains: Jotun!Loki and temperature kink.
> 
> Vaguely inspired by [this Oglaf comic](http://oglaf.com/snowbound/) (nsfw).

The man had been tracking them for days through the icy wastes, like a lone wolf, except that no wolf without a pack would attempt to take down such prey. They were only two Jotnar, of course, which probably gave their tracker confidence. Quite foolish confidence, considering that they were Loki (small but sorcerous) and Angrboda (a woman fierce and brutal enough that Loki would have appreciated her practical camaraderie even if she hadn’t been nine feet tall).

Loki had sent her on ahead on the third day of being followed. He’d wanted to see what he would do, this bold, foolish Asgardian, fur-wrapped and crouched in the distance where he likely thought they could not see him, so that he would indeed have resembled a wolf if not for the blond hair, wind-blown and shining under Jotunheim’s thin, pale sun. Loki’s suspicion had been proved right when the As did not jaunt ahead to follow the giantess but instead lingered back where he was, waiting. Watching for Loki to appear. Ah. Bold enough to come a-hunting on Jotunheim, haughty enough to do so alone, yet not quite stupid enough to go after the larger foe (and the one who would surely make a prouder trophy in his hall).

Yet also not clever enough to realize that in a realm such as this, a runt like Loki would not ever have survived if he were not more dangerous than he appeared.

That was why, the next morning, the Asgardian awoke to the feel of a cold blade pressing into his neck, just hard enough to make a line of red appear below. The man had hidden himself well—but not well enough, for this was frost giant territory, and Loki knew it better. The man had made use of a number of traps all around his little den tucked into a hollow in the snow to alert him to any approach—but he was expecting beasts or dim-witted warriors, not sorcerers, and Loki had taken apart a few of his traps, disassembled them in idle curiosity while the Asgardian slept so sweetly. Loki had pawed through the man’s supplies as well. They were spare and sensible, well made and well chosen. Enough to keep him alive without weighing him down: the mark of a skilled and experienced hunter. And all of it fine enough that he could well have been a noble, a leader among his own people. But as Loki hovered over his slumbering form, knife in hand… he thought this one looked young, for what little he knew of Aesir ages. Like a young man come to prove himself.

And well he might be. With the animosity between their realms, Loki decided he would not be surprised if such a thing had come into fashion.

But Loki had also noticed a far stranger thing about the gear the Asgardian carried: what sort of hunter goes after his prey with only a hammer for a weapon?

Loki had woken him then, curiosity lurking behind the menace in his smile.

“If I were you, I would lie just as still and quiet as you’re able. This is quite sharp. I’d hate to cut you on accident.” His eyes flicked to the crimson line. “Forgive me: cut you worse.”

To his credit, the man did not so much as breathe, and the look in his eyes, still groggy from sleep, was amusing enough that Loki let the knife ease up just a little. Just enough that he _could_ breathe.

Loki let himself take in the sight of the man then, for he was—surprisingly—not foolish enough to try to take advantage of the gesture. Yes, he was afraid, but there was a brightness in his blue eyes that spoke of long-accustomed invulnerability. And there was something else there, too. He did not look like a hunter who has been knocked to the ground by the sudden ferocity of the prey. If Loki would have given that look a name, he might have called it… awe?

But that was no reason to let him off the hook so easy. Loki cocked his head to one side.

“Is this your first time, Asgardian?”

“First time?” the man whispered through trembling lips.

“I only ask because I think it would sound better, when I kill _you,_ to be able to say I’ve slain a great enemy of the Jotnar and not some pissant child on his first hunting expedition.” Loki knew for a fact that the smile he gave the man in that moment was nothing less than terrifying. Red eyes glinting with murder and so many white, white teeth. So perhaps it was no surprise that the man’s mouth gaped, opening and closing a few times before he got out a single word.

At last he gasped when Loki pushed the blade harder against his skin. “I wasn’t hunting you!”

“Yes, you were,” Loki snarled in response.  His other hand came up to yank the Asgardian’s head back by his hair, making him stiffen from the pain and from knowing that if he struggled he would wind up slitting his own throat. “You have been following me and my companion for the last four days, and you are an Asgardian alone on Jotunheim, bearing all the accoutrements of a hunter. What else am I to conclude?”

The man made no answer and his gaze would not meet Loki’s. Curiously, his face flushed even redder than the chill winds had already made it.

Loki knew enough of the Aesir to recall that such a response was significant, but not enough to remember precisely what it signified. Loki studied the man, who bit his lip and seemed to squirm within his skin and continued to avoid Loki’s eyes, almost as if he was…  

Ah, Loki thought, grinning inside.

He began to get the idea.

*

The truth turned out to be that the Asgardian—who gave his name as Thor when at last Loki released him and let him up—was indeed a young noble come to prove himself, but not in the way Loki had imagined. Loki, curled contemplatively over his folded knee, dragged the entire explanation from him, no matter how awkward became the Asgardian’s stuttered answers or how uneasy his expression: it seemed, for all the animosity between their peoples, there would always be some for whom the enemy, through distance and difference and strangeness, would seem not monstrous but alluring.

“There are a few Jotun women in Asgard, wives to some of our men,” Thor added with a shrug. “It is not unheard of.”

“And you didn’t go after those nearer maids because… they are so virtuous? Or because you are?”

But of course not. Loki learned that Thor had been too proud for that—and too enamored of the idea of going to Jotunheim to seek out a lover of his own.

“And you were not interested in my companion, Angrboda?” Loki went on, in a voice of utter innocence.

No, of course he hadn’t been.

*

Loki had never before imagined such a thing. An As who ached to touch cold Jotun flesh, who could be entranced by pale blue skin, who could from afar fall in ridiculous infatuation with a Jotun whose size and appearance seemed to mark him as specifically made to be an Asgardian’s mate… it was strange to now see the obvious fascination in Thor’s eyes for what it was, but Loki would admit to drawing it out a bit, teasing the Asgardian and letting himself wallow in the man’s blatant desire.

“Will you not come with me to Asgard?” Thor asked, to which Loki could only laugh.

“You followed me for four days, and now you are enough in love that you wish to bring me home with you? Well, _I_ am not so rash. I would at least know that I like you and not just the look of you.”

“You like the look of me?” Thor replied, happiness bursting across his face like a ray of sunshine.

Loki rolled his eyes. “Are all Aesir so vain?”

Thor seemed only slightly dampened by this.

Loki continued, gesturing airily with his hand. “I would like to know that I like… more things about you than what I have seen.”

“What would you like to know?” Thor replied, looking hopeful.

Loki licked his lips before he answered, leaning forward a bit. “I would like to know that we are… compatible.”  

Thor looked shocked, then his eyes widened and he grinned.

*

Thor insisted on them bedding down among his furs in the shielded hollow beneath its sprawling awning of deep green pine. It was warmer there than anywhere else in this frozen landscape, but that was not saying much. He shed his clothes already shivering, however quickly and eagerly.

“Are you sure your body can handle the cold, little giant-hunter?” Loki laughed, leaning back on his elbows, perfectly comfortable.

“I will be fine once we… once we are…”

His teeth were chattering. Loki let his eyebrow rise.

“Once we are… active?”

Thor shot him a thoroughly chilled glare and managed to pull one of his large, thick furs over his shoulders before crawling forward to cover Loki’s body with his own.

*

Loki had, in his life, been taken by Jotnar twice his own size—true giants with stiff pricks like massive, blunt-tipped icicles of flesh. And he’d been ridden by giantesses like Angrboda, who would pin him down and laugh heartily to amuse themselves with a partner they could manipulate like a toy (Loki didn’t actually mind this, let it be said). He had also had his own magical conjurings tend to him when he felt bored by the dull-minded Jotnar around him. But he had never had an Aesir partner, and he thought now how much he had been missing out on.

After slicking him up with a drizzling of oil, Thor, with his lips to Loki’s shoulder, had pressed his cock inside—and oh, by the nine realms it was _hot_ , hot almost to the point of burning. Loki had touched Thor’s body already, certainly, felt furnace-heat pouring off him from feet away, seen it escaping in his white breaths. But this was different. When it was inside him, enclosed in his tenderest flesh, that heat was like a brand, almost but not quite reaching the point of pain.

Loki liked that.

He also liked the way the young Asgardian man rutted so desperately, so clearly sunk in the throes of his most cherished fantasy and lost in the wonder of it. His ice-blue eyes stayed locked on Loki’s face. His hands wandered across Loki’s body, worshipful, and Loki could feel him doing his best to be a good lover, to attend to his partner’s pleasure. He rubbed Loki’s peaked nipples between thumb and forefinger, stroked up and down his body, left just enough space between them as they huddled beneath his furs so that he could reach and grasp Loki’s cock in his hot hand.

Yet Loki could also feel him growing cold. (Or, well, colder.) And Loki was soon to learn the inevitable fate of warm-blooded males in very cold environments. When it happened, the look on Thor’s face suggested that he was ready to begin weeping in frustration.

“It’s the… the cold,” Thor explained, grinding out the words through lips gone blue-white, beneath a bunched brow. “It happens whenever it gets too cold.”

When Loki realized what he meant, he could not help but snicker (and that despite his own disappointment at the withdrawal of that delicious heat). “And what exactly did you expect it to feel like on the inside of a frost giant?”

Thor looked crestfallen, but then glanced away. “I thought I would enjoy it enough for that not to matter.”

“And didn’t you? Enjoy it, I mean.”

“Yes!”

By this point, Thor had pulled back, and he was tugging more furs around himself, trying to get warm again. Loki watched him: an Asgardian, coming to a realm of bitter cold that would freeze him in the night, believing he could simply seek out the first Jotun who seemed beautiful to him, stalk them for days with no plan at all, and somehow hope to make them his mate. Ridiculous. What luck, for Loki, that the Jotun who had caught Thor’s eye had been him.

“Well, then you’ve had your taste, then, haven’t you?” Loki said evenly. “And now you can say you’ve satisfied it, and you can go back to Asgard and wonder for the rest of your life how those Aesir men with Jotun wives manage not to freeze their dicks off every time. Or their tongues.”

Perhaps it was the tone of challenge that did it, Loki thought, for Thor stared at him fiercely but in the next moment had him again on his back—though this time with Loki’s cock in the scorching heat of Thor’s mouth, with the burn of Thor’s fingers delving into him to replace the cold-shrunken part, and Loki was hissing and clutching Thor’s hair and trying not to kick from the sudden ecstasy of Aesir warmth upon him.

In fact it was almost certainly the challenge that did it, for no man who would try such a ridiculous endeavor to get what he desired would let himself be put off by a little thing like the cold, or the things the cold did to his anatomy.

And even before Loki came—before Thor swallowed down his cool essence and then rose to his knees, stroking his once-again-hard prick furiously until he followed, spurting splashes of hot seed across Loki’s belly—before they had thus finished, Loki found himself wondering how he would like Asgard.


	5. The Broken Altar

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The trickster finds a group of Thor's followers at worship and decides to see just how much trouble he can get himself into.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Public / semi-public sex
> 
> Contains: Exhibitionism, humiliation kink

The temple had long been deserted, abandoned, ruined. The best-cut stones stolen to build new churches, followers gone to kneel in new faiths. Statues and symbols defaced or broken or destroyed. And all taken apart by the passage of time, the wearing of weather and damp air off the nearby sea.

Yet it was still a place of power, humming with old chants and prayers. And they were still gods, despite the long, dark years in which few had called their names and then only in quiet, hidden voices. And now, they had been sent back here by the Allfather—or, rather, he had subtly suggested that if they were journeying they might go to this place, which he would not have done had there not been something he wanted of it. Something he would have them seek, which he had not named—which must mean that if they found it, that fact would be quite clear.

But as he stepped through the threshold into the dusty, half-toppled structure, Loki felt nothing beyond the residues of belief and the low, fortifying whisper of ancient sacrifices made in this place.

“Have you found anything?” he called out to his brother, who was wandering on the other side of the ruined space, kicking through debris with a thoughtful look.

“Nay,” Thor answered, “nor any sign of what might have become of it, whatever it is.”

Loki frowned but made no reply.

There was nothing here but the residues of belief… and a sense of vague familiarity. Of course, it made sense that they should both be familiar with the place in some fashion… yet this seemed more than that…

It was not until he stumbled across the old altar, now canted at an angle against the crumbling wall, that Loki remembered. And smiled, the twist of his lip turning sly.

Casually he sidled over to where Thor was crouched peering at a small, broken carving near the entryway.

“The handle is indeed almost alarmingly short,” Loki said in a solicitous low voice that tried to claim to be no more than a simple observation.

Thor looked up at him, then down to where Mjolnir hung—as always—from his belt, the hammer’s power slumbering and quiet with its owner’s calm, then back to Loki. “What?”

“Do you remember? ‘The handle is indeed almost alarmingly short… yet it grows longer when he rubs it,’” Loki quoted, grinning, in reply.

That was what he had told them, the followers of Thor that he had found gathered in this very place hundreds of years before. He had sneaked away to Midgard on his own one day, and he had found the group of mortals at worship.

He had been drawn to all that power. Like a moth to flame, like a bee in a field of bright flowers, each one tempting him to taste. He had been drawn to all that burning belief—all that fierce adoration dedicated to Thor—and he could recall standing outside the doorway as he decided what he meant to do, drinking in the feel of it pouring over him in waves like heat from a great bonfire. Loki had no temples, no altars in his name. He never had; who would be foolish enough to erect any such to the god of mischief? So the feel of it—oh, it had appealed to him, lapping in palpable caresses over his skin that made him feel powerful and masterful and impossibly clever all at once, calling out to the flame of godhood within him and stoking it higher, and that was at least part of the reason why at last he had stepped forward into their midst. The other part was the sudden certainty that worship of Thor should always have a hint of Loki about it.

And the final part had been, of course, the pure joy of mischief. Particularly mischief upon Thor. He’d had the idea and simply hadn’t been able to resist.

Now, in the temple’s ruins it took a moment for Thor to recall it, but when he did he blinked and glanced around the broken walls as if seeing them again as they were, memory sweeping over his face in a wash of mild discomfort and a twitching hint of a smile. He cleared his throat and muttered.

“You told them that the hammer was… my male member.”

Loki laughed aloud at that. “Yes, I did, didn’t I? And I recited for them the lay of Thrym as well, for good measure. And you… even from Asgard you felt it and came to punish me for my insolence.” Loki glanced again over at the tilted altar. “Right over there, I believe.”

Thor followed Loki’s gaze and then looked quickly away. “I…” He swallowed. “I did not mean to shame you.”

Loki closed the space between them in two languorous strides, and smiled as he put up a hand and stroked it down Thor’s bearded cheek. “Of course you did, Thor. But it was only fair. I made you the god of cross-dressing and you made me the god of ergi, getting fucked on another god’s altar before all his gathered followers.”

Thor blushed a little harder.

“You _were_ furious with me,” Loki added.

And oh, he had been. Thor had arrived with that same hammer that Loki had so lewdly described (a few of the womenfolk even tittered as he gripped it in his gauntleted hand), and he had advanced on Loki with such thunderous rage in his eyes that Loki had shrunk back.

Of course he had known that Thor would find out, and that he would chase after Loki to take vengeance upon him, and likely they would scuffle and, from there, who could guess? That was half the fun of needling Thor.

But Thor had surprised him that time, truly, bringing no blows but only grabbing him before he could sidestep, spinning him around with a rough shove that landed him directly upon the altar. He had not even gotten his elbows under him before Thor was behind him, tearing at his breeches roughly, leaving his lower half bare in the cool air.

Loki had truly not believed it. He had squawked in protest, trying to find Thor’s shins to kick with the heel of one tangled-up boot, but Thor only gave his ass a punishing slap to quiet him, his other hand an impossible weight between Loki’s shoulder blades, pressing him into the stone.

“So that is what you would say of me, trickster?” Thor demanded, his palm shifting against Loki’s spine as he pulled himself out of his own breeches, as he spat on his fingers and rubbed the wetness between their bodies in the most cursory preparation Loki had ever been given in his life, as he prodded the head of his cock against Loki’s hole in warning. “That is what you would say of Thor? Then we must at least be fair and show these mortals what is true of Loki as well.”

No, Loki had not been expecting this at all, and in shock and in the sudden apprehension shooting through him he tried, uselessly, to wriggle away. He laughed a little to cover his disbelief, the sound rising over the susurrus of the crowd of watching mortals and the clatter of their struggle. But Thor did not give him long to fight, spearing his squirming brother on his cock in the very next moment, all in one long, cruel slide that made Loki thrash and cry out and clutch at the stony surface with desperate fingertips.

Oh yes, Thor was furious with him, so enraged he did not care about the audience they had—odd, for Thor was usually not at all one to be so public with his desires, though that seemed to be the only piece of princely decorum that their upbringing had truly instilled in him—but Loki was aware in every pore of all the eyes upon them. In moments Thor was fucking him brutally enough to make him whimper.

Loki had not expected this when he strode across the threshold into the temple, smirking in anticipation. Loki had basked in the waves of belief that radiated from their worship. And now this roomful of mortals, which Loki had but a few minutes ago been regaling with every salacious tale of his brother that Loki could think of, formed a ring of whispers all around as they watched him getting fucked in the ass by the god of thunder. The awed crowd was caught between reverence for their most adored deity, the one who smoldered in rage above him, and gleeful scandal at the sight of the trickster god receiving such perverse punishment in repayment for his faithless mischief.

Humiliation colored Loki’s cheeks as he became ever more aware of it.

He squirmed and struggled, but Thor’s powerful hand pushed him belly-down onto the smooth altar. That pressure, combined with the force of the ruinous pounding his ass suffered, shoved deep groans out of his lungs, and Loki hated it, squeezed his eyes shut, struggled harder.

…Oh, but the gathered mortals knew him for a liar, and they knew how little his continued struggling meant. He could hear the whispers rising: they were not only watching Loki being punished. They were watching Loki _love_ it.

Loki felt himself moaning, and Thor took that as a sign to fuck him harder.

“Feel fortunate I do not use the handle of my hammer on you,” Thor said, leaning down close to speak into his ear, his other hand gripped tight in Loki’s hair and yanking his head back until his neck strained. Loki could hear the scowl in his voice. “Although from what you’ve told them, I already am.”

The choked laugh forced its way out through his constricted throat. Goading, taunting, resisting. “Yes, brother. Show them your… manhood… Prove your power…”

Thor growled in reply, his hand shoving Loki more firmly down, pinning him against the stone. Making him take it.

Oh yes, Thor meant to shame him, meant to show the mortals a god who could be bent over in front of an audience for a well-deserved punishment and like it. Loki could only imagine how the two of them looked, with Thor furious beyond reason, exuding power, hips slamming into him from behind, holding him down. He could only imagine how he himself looked, squirming now in pleasure, body tensed and contorted, his face surely flushed from the pounding of the blood in his veins, the excitement of the moment. Moaning from the feel of being ruined by the thunder god’s cock splitting him apart, and his own prick bobbing red and hard and neglected beneath him.

He knew the stories they told of the trickster god before—what would they say of him now? What were they already whispering all around him?

Loki couldn’t help but reach down and take himself in hand at the thought, his aching length requiring only one or two quick strokes before he was spilling across the polished surface of the altar with a scream. And he felt, in the same moment, the shudder that passed through Thor: all that fell upon that altar was his, was given up to the gods.

So in a way, in his anger, Thor had sacrificed his brother’s seed to himself. And what a strange feeling that must be, Loki thought, grinning in his reeling, wrecked amusement as he collapsed forward and lay there gasping for breath like a fish on dry land, waiting for Thor to finish as well.

He wondered idly if Thor could taste it.  

*

Now, in that abandoned place echoing with long-dead whispers, Thor stared at that altar, wearing a look of awkward recollection, as if unsure whether he should feel embarrassed of what he’d done or proud.

“And then when your anger had spent itself along with your cock, you did not stop apologizing to me for a month, no matter what I said,” Loki added.

Thor’s expression settled back to decidedly embarrassed. “Loki, I… I truly did not mean to…”

“You truly will never believe me when I say I didn’t mind, will you?” Loki interrupted softly and almost absently as he ambled over to where the altar lay on its side, its massive granite surface at a slant against the wall. He waved Thor over to help him right it, and once they were done he ran a hand over the polished top, smiling. Worship in this place had certainly taken on the taint of Loki after what they’d done. He had been pleased with that, at the little shivers of power that were sometimes sent through him as… _things_ were done upon that altar. And to think he hadn’t thought of it in years.

Which gave him an idea.

Leaning jauntily against the stone, Loki threw Thor his best devious look, one eyebrow raised. “It is still _your_ altar, Thor. Though I know I will miss the crowd of onlookers, myself.”

Thor stared at him.

“Well? Or must I go find some and tell them more tales before you will give me a repeat performance? I will, you know.”

It took only a little more of this before Thor took what was so clearly on offer.

*

It was a little while later that they left, empty-handed, having found no trace of whatever it was that Odin had hoped they would find.

Though in Loki’s case, empty-handed was not quite accurate. He had in his pocket a piece of silver that he had found, a glint hidden by years of dust and a few windblown leaves at the foot of the altar as he bent to right it. He had brushed it off and lifted it into the light: a pendant meant to be worn around the neck, though the leather cord was long since rotted away. A little sigil of power, but one with the mark of this place about it; a hammer, with a handle that was almost alarmingly short. Just the thought made Loki smile.


	6. Chasm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thor has been captured by Dark Elves and chained in a cave. Loki comes to him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Sensory deprivation
> 
> Warnings: Character death, mild torture, dark elements, blood and injuries
> 
> (Happy Halloween, everybody! Have some spookyfic.)

In the dark, Thor hangs by his wrists.

His shoulders have long since ceased shrieking at him, the bones out of joint, the muscles stretched to their limit by the weight of his body pulling endlessly down to what seems a lightless cavern beneath his feet. The blood on his skin has long since dried; it itches as it flakes away with each twitch of motion.

He cannot move much.

The last thing he saw was the long, dancing shadows on the stone walls. The deep black of the shadows. The copper color of the light of the Dark Elves’ torches as they went away, disappearing up the winding staircase. The shapes in the shadows, the light searing in Thor’s eyes. He felt he had blinked and it was gone, and he dangled alone in the silence.

Not quite silence. There are the whispering clinks of the chain, the occasional metallic creak from above or a sound like the echoes of breathing, like the faint crash of a distant ocean. The chasm beneath him—perhaps, somewhere, it leads to the sea. Perhaps it is Thor’s blood coursing in his veins.

“What a mess you’ve gotten yourself into.”

Thor hears Loki’s footsteps on the stone. He hears his brother approach, and though he cannot see him in the dark he feels Loki’s hand as it comes to rest on the small of his back.

The Dark Elves stripped him naked when they hung him here. They tore away his armor and cut away his clothes and left him clad in streaks of his own blood.

Loki’s hand is cool and comforting.

“Loki, help me…” (A rasp. A mumble. Thor’s throat has long since gone dry. He doesn’t recognize his own voice.)

*

Loki reveals the blindfold with a flourish, a clever smile on his lips.

“Try it,” he says. “Unless you fear your own pleasure.”

Thor knows better than this, and he frowns. “You mean, unless I fear what tricks you might play out while I am thus vulnerable.”

“That is part of the thrill. You can never quite be sure, can you?” Loki’s eyes are on him as if he were a wolf and Thor the tender prey. “I will make you no promises.”

Thor, because he is a fool and also because he is not one, lets Loki tie the opaque strip of fabric across his eyes.

In the darkness, unanticipated touches drive him to the edge and keep him there. Soft and feather-light. The scrape of icy cold. Thor’s muscles jump and twitch, his body writhes, never knowing what the next caress will be. Thor groans when at last a hot, wet mouth closes in one swift motion over his straining cock. Electricity down his spine. He comes hard in the darkness, panting and desperate, his hands tangled in the hair of his unseen lover to make sure that he cannot pull away at the last moment and rob him of his completion, as is the trickster’s wont.

There is quiet laughter in the darkness afterward, quiet laughter pressed in kisses against his thigh and belly.

*

Loki’s hand moves away then. Thor feels its loss keenly.

At any moment, Loki will begin to berate him again for his failures. For ending up chained here. And Loki will be right.

The enemies of Asgard had risen. Thor had fought them, with his brother at his side. There should have been no chance of defeat for them. Yet it ended with him chained in a place so dark he cannot tell whether his eyes are closed or open; it would not matter either way.

He only vaguely remembers being dragged here, down through winding caves to this place. Wounded, bleeding, his blood falling in thick droplets that must still mark his path like pebbles, yet there is no escape now and he had not looked back then. Had not bothered. His head had hung down, except when one Dark Elf or another yanked it backward by his hair, only to slap his face or peel back his eyelids or splash him with cold water, for all the world as if they did not wish him to sleep before they could get him to their destination.

He had been too weakened to fight back when they chained him, hauled him upward by the creaking metal, swung him out over the dark drop. He tried to speak only once, a garbled threat as their torches receded. They had laughed at him, and copper and black spilled across the walls in dancing patterns. Begone with them, he thought, triumphant, weak, smiling as the darkness turned total.

“Chances are they mean to leave you here forever. I doubt anyone saw you being taken alive. I doubt anyone would believe it. So no one shall come searching, if there is anyone left to do so.”

To Thor’s surprise, Loki sounds truly sorrowful.

“Brother,” Thor gasps. But his voice is too ragged to repeat his plea.

There is silence, the thin, echoing silence of a held breath. Of a heartbeat and a distant sea. Then Loki answers the question Thor did not ask. “I’m sorry,” Loki says, his voice resonant and near. Too near. So near that Thor expects at any moment to feel his hand again, steadying and cool as serpents’ skin. “I can do nothing for you.”

*

“You trust me,” Loki says with a smile as he binds Thor’s wrists and ankles, one by one, to the posts of the bed. They chose Thor’s chambers for this occasion for just that reason. “Perhaps you shouldn’t. And perhaps you would deny it. But you do.”

The rope is soft, and Loki’s knots are not tight for all that they are sturdy and strong, and though Thor might wish to claim to find it constricting, instead he feels a warmth well up in him as the last knot is tied.

He waits to find out what Loki will do.

His palms begin to itch when Loki stands spread-legged over him on the bed, one hand wrenched around behind himself, fingers wet with oil, working himself open. Loki’s eyes upon him, his mouth a little slack as he hisses and moans.

Thor’s cock points unflaggingly skyward at the lewd display, and he can barely control his hips from bucking when Loki lowers himself onto it, slipping down inch by hot and well-slicked inch.

Thor discovers the bindings on his wrists anew each moment, as he unthinkingly reaches for his brother, wanting to touch, to pinch the pink nipples on his pale chest, to pull him back and forth, to shove his prick deeper inside and make Loki keen.

“You will have what I give you,” Loki says, and his green eyes have a look of intoxication to them as he rides, faster. Faster.

Thor’s fingers ache from the need to touch. His hands clench from the need of it. His toes curl. Loki does not let him, of course, does not release him, no matter how Thor begs and pleads. At last, never having touched his lover anywhere other than where their bodies are joined, Thor gives in as his balls draw up tight and he spills inside his brother with a groan, and then afterward he can do nothing when Loki remains there, sitting in Thor’s lap with his slowly softening cock still stuffed up in him. Loki’s fist on his own cock, stroking himself the rest of the way. Spurting across Thor’s chest. Admiring the mess he’s made for long enough that Thor grows impatient.

Loki’s hands replace the binding ropes, pressing him down as they kiss.

*

Thor can see nothing in the darkness, can hear nothing in the silence, can feel nothing in the temperate air and the numbness of his slow-healing flesh.

He feels the heat of angry tears dripping down his cheeks.

“Help me,” he insists, stubborn.

No matter what has happened, he cannot believe his brother would abandon him. Would leave him to suffer like this.

There is a hand brushing a few blood-caked, tangled strands of hair back behind his ear. Tenderly.

“I cannot,” Loki repeats, and this time his voice is even nearer. A whisper in Thor’s ear. He can almost feel the tickle of his breath, but that may only be because he has been waiting for it. Feeling for it through the nothingness.

Thor would thrash if he still had the strength. Would make the chains rattle and scream. Would hope to thrash wildly enough to kick his brother in the stomach, knock the breath from him for his betrayal. He wishes he could do that at least.

“You know that, brother.”

But Loki sounds so sorrowful that Thor almost… almost trusts him. Almost believes.

“You saw me die.”

There is a hand softly brushing his collarbone, the palm resting on his skin. Thor feels every cool inch of it.

*

Loki stands bound and blindfolded, head held high. He has betrayed them, the Dark Elves. They know it. Thor, too, knows. He sees. He watches as reprisal comes.

He cannot get out a sound to warn his brother. An enchanted blade, Thor thinks, for nothing else could so swiftly cut Loki from his life. Loki does not see it coming. He does not know. He does not cry out from the pain, as far as Thor can tell, but blood pours out of his wound like water from the fount.

Loki’s body falls forward, limp as a child’s cloth doll, heavy as a dark dream.

He tries to tell himself it is a gift that Loki is giving him. Time. An opening. A chance to save the rest, though his brother is lost. But his tears flow too freely, the grief-stricken anger is too hot in his veins; never before has anger hindered him on the battlefield, but now he can barely think of anything but that crumpled figure.

His hand is wrapped around the hammer’s haft, the massive head sunken in rust-colored mud, and he is on his knees when they find him. A deep wound in his side. Another in his thigh. His shoulder. He has lost count. He has stopped caring. His brother’s body lies fallen. Nothing matters anymore.

They swarm around him, and he musters one last fight.

Maybe it was not a gift at all.

*

High and soft, the sound of chains as Thor’s body shifts.

Loki’s breaths so near Thor can almost feel them, if he concentrates.

If anyone could escape from death, it would be Loki. Thor turns his head, twists, rejecting the hand that lingers at his neck. But there is nothing he can do to stop its descent, or to stop the arms that envelop him.

One of Loki’s hands works its way up into his hair. The other strays downward, wrapping around his waist, dragging their bodies together, making the chains whisper. Thor had forgotten that his arms are numb and his shoulders ruined. He is reminded of it now. He is also reminded of the yawning chasm beneath his feet.

He cannot tell what Loki stands upon.

“There is no help I could give that you would want,” Loki says as he kisses Thor’s unwilling mouth.

There is a tension in the air that lasts even after Thor begins to kiss back, trying to clear his mind. Trying to remember whether he heard Loki’s footsteps on the stone floor or not.

“I am dead, and you are alive. So you will have to endure.”

When Thor squeezes his eyes shut, he knows it only because of the pressure of the damp lids against each other. But somehow, Loki also knows, and kisses them as well. His lips are cool against that softest skin.  

The air sighs in the darkness, distant echoes building into a white noise of eternity, and Thor can feel nothing. There is nothing to feel in this place except emptiness and the last ghosts of his body’s pain.

There is nothing to feel except that he is alone.


	7. Blood Is Life

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A vampire AU: Where Loki comes from, vampires are being hunted down and killed, so he runs north, hoping to find somewhere safe. Along the way he comes across a perfect mortal minion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Body fluids
> 
> Warnings: Blood, group violence, religion, fictional historical versions of the Nordic countries.
> 
> Note: I read way too much Anne Rice in my youth. You can probably tell.

Loki ends up somewhere in the freezing north when the year ends. It is a change from the fragrant islands of Greece, the teeming streets of Paris, the gloom of Budapest. And somehow, on the road, he has gone from appearing as a proper gentleman in finely tailored silk and linen, black and white and green, to something far nearer a beast. He no longer travels by coach or ship; instead he runs on foot by night, passing through black woods as an even blacker shadow. Infants wail in the villages he passes, but he does not stop to feed. He is fleeing, fleeing from the great slayings taking place in parts of the world that know the name of his kind. And though he has heard these are Christian lands now, he has not met a vampire from the north in ages. He thinks he will be safe here.

Christian lands, yet the rough shack he finds in the middle of the woods has an air of worship about it, but no crucifixes. None of the symbols of that faith. There are no other symbols outside of any kind, yet as Loki passes through the entrance he finds that the doorway itself is marked with runes—of protection, he supposes. They have no effect on him, of course.

And though he had expected to find the place abandoned or at least empty at this hour, to perhaps find a hidden spot within in which to wait out the coming dawn, he can tell in an instant that he was wrong. The warm smell of a human. The richness of living blood beating fast through living veins in terror.

He finds the man crouching behind the altar, clutching an axe to his chest and staring at Loki with wide eyes. Big, muscular, beautiful, a scrub of golden beard on his chin, clothed in rough grey cloth with smooth-braided red and blue trim… this is not what Loki would expect from a priest in the southern climes. Yet that is what the man claims to be.

“Of Odin. And Thor. The true gods,” the man rasps out, Loki’s hand tight around his throat shoving him against the wall. Loki had torn the axe from his hands but still his fists clench and struggle, as if he could fight Loki off with his own strength if only given the chance.

But Loki senses an opportunity and he lowers the man to the ground, letting him stand on his own feet, even if he is still pinned. “A priest of the true gods,” he says, amused. “And do they not worship Christ in these lands?”

The priest looks bitter. Strings of his blond hair hang like slanting sunlight across his reddened face. “Now, yes.”

 “So if you were to run and tell the village how there is a monster inhabiting your temple, one not kept away by the true gods…” Loki’s voice is sly as he drawls out the words. “What would happen then?”

The priest gets his meaning quickly. The defiance dims in those ice-blue eyes and he swallows. “What do you want?”

Loki smiles. “Hospitality. Just that. It’s not so much to ask, is it?”

The priest stares back at him for a long, quiet moment before he answers.  

*

It is a foolish risk, an impossible gamble, yet Loki has never shied from danger. And the next nightfall proves him right. The priest is still there, and there is no stake through Loki’s chest, and the day has passed apparently without event.

Over the coming days he learns that the priest’s name is Thor, after his god. He learns that there are but a handful of worshippers in the area, who all come in secret to receive blessings or give sacrifice, and Thor’s living is scanty and uncertain and always on the edge of disaster, if his presence became widely known.

He learns that Thor sleeps lightly, when he awakens as Loki slips back into the rough temple after going out to feed (only on Christians, of course, in deference to his host). When Thor catches sight of him upon his return he begins to panic, quietly, in the way of large men unaccustomed to fear. Loki realizes it is the blood still ruddying his mouth that terrifies Thor so—not, perhaps, its presence, but its meaning. Thor had not really believed what Loki had freely admitted to him from the very first night. His own folklore told of revenants, the dead who got up to walk again, so changed from what their loved ones remembered that their horror was clear even before they began to rot. But there were not, as such, any bloodsuckers like Loki.

Thor’s fear has such a piquant taste that Loki simply must quench his thirst.

Thor fights him for every moment, hands pushing uselessly against Loki’s head as he dips his mouth to the pulsing artery in Thor’s neck. He thrashes as fangs pierce skin. He does not stop struggling even as Loki’s arms wrap inexorably around his chest, tugging him close.

And the taste… the taste is so divine that Loki stops long before he has drained him.

When he lets Thor go, there are tears dappling the priest’s face. He had believed he was going to die, and not in any way his faith would call honorable. He thought he was going to Hel.

Before Thor can comprehend what he is doing, Loki bites a gouge in his own arm and presses the wound to Thor’s mouth. Thor swallows, once, in pure surprise. He spends the next five minutes retching.

*

Thor tries to go on as if nothing has happened. As soon as his strength and color return he is back to performing the ceremonies to his gods, accepting the sacrifices of the faithful and sending up his own lovely, deep voice in supplication. But he cannot escape Loki now.

It all makes perfect sense. A mortal not beholden to the Christian faith, a mortal with the strength to defend him while he lies asleep by day, a mortal who is used to hiding and secrecy. Loki tells himself these are his reasons for choosing Thor. Yet he knows they are excuses.

In the simplest terms, Loki wants him.

That is why, when the inevitable happens weeks later and half the man’s village arrives at dusk, beating sticks together and making a great chaotic noise filled with screams of _heretic_ and _heathen_ , Loki saves him. Loki is kind enough even to grab one of his books, the words of his myths, as he drags Thor away from the burning ruins with his other hand. He throws both down on the thick layer of dead, brown leaves when they are far enough away.

With tears dashed across his cheeks Thor yells at him, curses him, blames him. It is only because so many had died in the village of mysterious ailments that left them pale and bloodless in their beds… that was the only reason why suspicion fell on him, on his gods…

Loki snatches him up by the collar of his drab grey shirt and tells him the truth.

“Your gods, their gods… I have never seen any sign of any of them. I have killed more mortals than you have met in your short life and never have the gods thought to intervene. And then you kill each other for gods who will never bother to save you!”

Thor stares at him in shock and says nothing else for the rest of the night. They find a lonesome farm and sneak into the cold, damp stone cellar, and Thor sits across from him in silence, frowning, as the deadly sun rises outside.

*

Loki makes it up to him by bringing them to the cold, grey coast where the salt spray fills the air, finding them passage on a ship, and taking them both to Reykjavík. It will be safer there, for both of them. It is a growing city, full of people with their eyes on the bright future—in a few decades, perhaps, it will be a place more like what Loki is used to. Though as yet, it is still quite small.

“They may actually notice a few pale peasants drained of blood winding up in the gutters each month,” Loki adds as he tells Thor his plan. “Though that is a problem everywhere.”

Thor is alarmed. Then Loki begins to explain what they can do to protect themselves, and Thor grows even more alarmed.

“I don’t always have to kill. If I have someone strong who will let me drink from them, but a little each time…”

In the end Loki would have done it whether Thor agreed or not—Thor cannot stop him—but he is glad when Thor nods, trepidation dark in his eyes. He wants Thor to want him as well.

*

Every time, before Loki drinks, Thor’s chest heaves with quick, panicked breaths. His eyes are always quick with it. His hands always clench into fists and Loki can practically see him wanting the axe with which he once protected himself, alone in the wilds. Yet he doesn’t struggle now. He bares his throat and closes his eyes and waits. He lets the monster consume him, lets Loki slide his teeth into his flesh and gulp down a few delectable mouthfuls of his blood before pulling away. Then—as Loki teaches him he will heal faster if he does—he takes a single taste of Loki’s blood in return.

Loki savors that nearly as much, the heat of Thor’s mouth on him—Loki cuts himself on the throat more often these days, just for the feel of Thor plastering himself against him, vital force returning and heating him, bringing out a blush in his fair skin, strengthening him until there comes a time when Loki must actually use some force to push him away when he has had his taste.

Thor’s eyes grow a little brighter each time until they shine like stars, unnatural and beautiful. Sometimes he takes more than a taste, and then they are glassy for days, filled with a fog of delirious pleasure that is slow to dissipate.

He is Loki’s now. Even if he tried to escape, he would crave, he would desire, he would want.

And he is mortal, so he is unable to hide his reactions, his desire. Time comes that when Loki drinks from him he whines and rubs himself against Loki’s hard, undead flesh. Loki likes this, even if all he can do is let Thor writhe against him, helpless, until he spasms and falls still.

*

After months (or is it years?), Thor is almost impossibly strong for a mortal, and Loki is red-cheeked and healthy-looking, and nothing could possibly be better than their lives there in Iceland. Thor has found a small congregation to lead—for he is warm and charismatic and easily loved, with a bright light in his eyes when he tells the tales of the old gods—and Loki has books and newspapers shipped in from all over Europe so that he can trace history as it happens and feel the connections to his own past, no matter that he never speaks of it. And though they are a vampire and his mortal daylight protector, a monster and a man who has fallen under the sway of a monster, Loki sometimes feels they are little different than any other pair of lovers.

Perhaps that is why it ends.

This should not have happened in what is quickly becoming a modern city, no longer prey to superstitions. But the bodies are evidence, and these are people who believe their eyes. The priest—everyone has seen that he is too strong, far too strong. It is undeniable. And the people of Reykjavík are wiser to this threat than those in Thor’s little village. They come in the daylight hours, for one.

When Loki wakes he can smell blood in the air, deep arterial blood, and the ashes and embers of a great fire. And he can feel his own skin burning crisp in the sun.

He hears screams and he cannot later remember if they were his own, or Thor’s, or if that was the sound of the people’s vengeful rage as they destroyed the monsters in their midst.

He fights blindly, madly, but it is all he can do to escape, to stumble away alone into the shadows. Thor is nowhere to be seen. Loki can still smell blood and fire in the air.

It seems the gods are not the only ones who cannot save their faithful.

*

Loki escapes. He escapes, but Thor is lost… _gone._ Loki escapes and buries himself, his burnt skin stinging, his eyes red, his mind numb. In grief he sleeps, for a hundred years or more.

*

Loki wakes to a new century. He is healed and everything is different. It is bright and brilliant and he tries to tell himself that he will make a new start.

This is a perfect time to make a new start.

The old superstitions are dead. He scours the newspapers for weeks to be sure, but there is no mention of the undead menace anywhere, except in a few that he is fairly sure are rags that no one pays any attention to. Things like him are the subject of romances, and even when they feature in tales of horror it is taken as no more than fantasy.

This is a perfect time to make a new start, if he is careful.

What passed for caution in the old days will not do now. Loki studies the police manuals, the coroner’s reports. He learns what they will look for and what they will not see. If he is supremely careful, he can feed. And people are so good now not to intrude upon each other’s privacy that no one will care if they never see him during daylight. He will not need a protector if he employs the right home security agency.

This is a perfect time to make a new start.

But he finds that he has been sitting in a rented room for a month, hardly moving. Piles of newspapers scattered in the corners. Dark, thick curtains over the windows. He tells himself he would have been alone by now anyway; the price of loving a mortal. He always knew that. Yet he sits, motionless, his mind echoing the silence of the room.

There is nothing at all that he wants to do with his eternity.

*

Only hunger could eventually drive him out. This will be only his third kill since waking—the first had been almost on instinct, mad and driven, sucking down the life of the first hapless mortal to cross his path after he clawed his way out of his tomb. The second, more considered, trying to learn the rules of this new game. This one he has planned. A victim no one will miss, and he can wipe away the stain of his hunger afterward.

The victim asleep on the park bench as he approaches, printed money in hand as if to offer kindness to an unfortunate…

Loki hears the heartbeat behind him, all around him, and he stops where he stands. He scents the smell of fear on the air, or something very like it. Apprehension. Nervousness.

Footsteps. Heavy and mortal, a large man trying to be silent. A familiar gait… he spins…

Ice-blue eyes, far too bright, gaze at him in wonder, in amazement, in the ache of absent longing.

“Loki!”

It is Thor. It cannot be Thor. Thor is dead. Thor did not survive the attack in Reykjavík. Thor would have been long dead even if he had, would have been ancient, dusty bones. But he hadn’t. Thor had been _killed_ …

Thor is…

Loki gasps and stares, head shaking in unconscious denial. He cannot say a word.

Thor crushes him in an embrace in the next moment, and his half-mortal heart beats against Loki’s chest, fervent and hot and mad, still tainted with each little taste of Loki’s blood he’d ever taken.

“You were gone so long,” Thor says, and Loki can hear the reproach in his voice, and the years of loneliness, and the joy at their reunion after all this time.

Loki feels like weeping, so he does. Thor kisses the blood of his tears away.

*

In the spring, at the start of the year, they travel south together, passing through many lands along the way. They go as far as the Mediterranean, finding themselves a restful little peninsula on which to stop for a while, the air forever scented with olive trees and sea salt, and each evening Loki wakes to find Thor near, watching him tenderly.

“Tell me you haven’t been there all day,” he chides, though he knows he hasn’t; Thor’s skin grows a little more richly tanned every day from walking under the sun while Loki sleeps. “We needn’t worry so much anymore. The world is different now.”

But Thor only smiles. He doesn’t bother to remind Loki again that he spent most of a century searching for him and he is making up for lost time.

The last blue of the day is fading beyond the window when Thor lies down beside him, hands in Loki’s hair as he bares his throat and welcomes their little kiss. And Loki cannot help but think that it is true. The world is different, for all that he is back where he began and they are together again, he and his half-mortal lover.

He breathes the golden scent of sunlight on Thor’s skin and feels the man’s arms twine tight around him, holding on as if he never means to let him go, as Loki’s fangs slide in to taste him as well. And Loki smiles as the blood hits his tongue—for it is _their_ blood, mingled in his mortal’s veins.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story has sequel now: [Blood Is Life (Eternal)](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5088211/chapters/11699581).


	8. Justification for Defenestration

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ever since falling through the void, Loki has had a bit of a problem. A personal problem. A personal problem that might have something to do with why he took offense at the insinuation of "performance issues."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Masturbation
> 
> Contains: Sexual dysfunction, angst, allusions to injuries and possibly torture.
> 
> This ficlet is set during Thor 2 but there are no spoilers; it is only based on what is visible in trailers, as I haven’t seen the movie yet. Which is why I guess I’d better post it now before this becomes completely ridiculous to everyone.

Hurling Tony Stark through a window had not been part of the plan. Oh, it is not that Loki regrets it; for that he would have to care. But he still sometimes squirms to recall what led up to it. The moment when the scepter failed and the mortal’s taunting reply, and then the panic that had overtaken him, the icy flush chased by fever running up and down his body at the words. He had been startlingly slow to work out what the mortal was implying of him—and that in itself told of how weary he was, how shaken, clinging to sanity by his fingertips. But once he had, he had panicked and rage had taken over. He had lashed out. Glass had shattered, wind had roared. If the mortal would joke thus at Loki’s expense, let him see what it was to fall, to be broken…

Loki was glad later that no one, it seemed, had noticed how close to home that jibe had struck.

*

For the most part, Loki had put it out of his mind since then. He’d had other things to concern himself with, after all, and the fact of his brokenness could easily be forgotten in favor of more pressing things, like being dragged back to Asgard in chains by one who called him brother, and being left to rot in a dungeon.

But he had suddenly remembered it now that he was out once more and playing guide to Thor and his mortal harlot, leading them through the ashen plains toward a hopeless aim ( _an Asgardian, a mortal, and a frost giant walk into a barren wasteland_ , he thought, a dark smirk just twitching at his lip. _And how would such a joke end?_ ).

It was not as if it mattered to anyone but him. And likely he would die soon enough, whether at Thor’s hand or by his foolishness, and then it would matter to no one at all.

That night, despite the binding of his wrists and most of his magic, he kindled a small, dim fire, just enough to keep their camp warm in the biting chill, and then he took himself away to curl under a blanket with his back to them both, just out of reach of both warmth and light—away from his once-brother and _her_.  

The mortal woman had kept her distance after that first outburst, as if belatedly sensing danger, but she needn’t have worried. Thor now stepped between them at any hint of menace toward her from the weakened trickster; he stayed close by her side, supporting her as they trudged through the shadowy ravines and along sharp ridges. At nights they kept each other company, as if they were the only ones there, and when Thor chanced to look his way—Thor, who had for so long insisted on their kinship—it was with untempered hostility flashing among the flames in his eyes.

There was a quiet sound of laughter, and Loki knew without looking that his brother was putting a warm arm around the mortal woman’s tiny shoulders as they huddled before the fire. _His_ fire. Of course they weren’t grateful at all. Of course they treated such little favors as his due penance.

Loki clenched his teeth. He did not care. They both despised him, and he cared even less about that.

And right now, he had other things in mind.

He lay unmoving, staring out at the slow crawl of the heavy yellow moon of this realm as it dipped toward the jagged horizon, and he waited for the right moment.

Never had he tried it during his time in the dungeons, with ram-horned guards watching over his every motion, anxious for any salacious details of the trickster’s incarceration that they might spread to shame him. The last time he had made any attempt at all had been—ah, on Midgard, in a hidden corner of one of the underground burrows his minions had led him to, his back leaned against the wall, just before going to let himself be captured by the heroes of the realm.

That attempt had ended badly, a frustrated groan of misery caught in his throat, his fist clenched around limp flesh devoid of pleasure.

He was broken. He had fallen, he has suffered, and in the end he had broken. He had survived, because he was Loki. But he had been broken in a way that he could not seem to heal.

Now he would find out if that was true. If the damage was complete.

When the moon at last was gone and the blackness total, Loki lifted his head, turned and looked over his shoulder at where Thor and Jane had been sitting. There was a blanket-covered lump on the ground at Thor’s side, which was presumably the mortal. But an unflinching pair of icy blue eyes tracked Loki’s quiet motion and gazed back at him over the hard line of Thor’s mouth.

Loki turned his glance into a brief glare before laying himself back down. So. Thor was still awake and clearly intended to remain so. But that hardly mattered. Loki could be silent, and he was off in the dark, at a good distance. And this exercise was likely to be futile anyway.

Loki kept his back to the dim glow of the fire as he sneaked his bound hands down the front of his own breeches, fingers traveling carefully to grope at the sleeping organ, trying to rouse it to some shadow of its former self.

Once he had been quite skilled at this, with lovers or alone. And now—he bit down hard on his lip at the thought—he was reduced to the tense curve of sunken shoulders and a sluggish prick in his hand, sensing Thor’s eyes on him in the dark. His brother, who had made it clear that he cared more for the mortal woman asleep beside him than he ever had for Loki. His brother, who had only set him loose from prison after promising to kill him if he put a foot wrong on their mission. His brother, who he had once…

Loki squeezed his eyes shut to rid himself of the thought.

Not since the void. The cracks that had shattered his nerves and left him as a wreck of himself had begun to spread then. What happened after had only made it worse, as he clawed and fought, as they tested him and twisted him and…

He could not remember when last he felt anything but the weakest shadow of warmth, when last his cock had thickened for more than a moment, just long enough to raise his hopes only to dash them again.

But it seemed it was capable of rousing here under strange stars. Maybe, perversely, it helped to know that he was being gazed upon by one who did not suspect what his hand did. There was a little bit of fear in that—however dull in comparison to all he’d known—and perhaps that now stirred him.

Loki swallowed around a rush of dreadful anticipation as he grasped himself roughly, the web of his thumb catching on the bulbous ridge of the head, foreskin sliding, the throb of the thick vein on the underside hot in his hand. Loki gritted his teeth and did not dare make a sound. It… it _was_ pleasure that glutted his tensed body now and crowded behind his clamped-shut lips, but not pleasure as he had ever known it before. A sickening pleasure, sour and empty and aching in his belly, like a knife wound. He ducked his head, blocking out even the faint light of the fire as it reflected from the jagged stones around their clearing.

 _Everything had been stolen from him. Everything had been taken. Everything was gone_.

Once he could have made himself spill in minutes, once he could have sprawled out, shameless, and stroked himself to release two or three times, easily. Or if his own company had not satisfied him, he could have visited Thor’s chambers in secret, gotten Thor to suck him off as a brotherly favor, or let him put it between his thighs. But now he had no choice but to lie here alone on the cold, hard ground—

Loki’s eyes flew open at the hint of a touch on his shoulder. He nearly cried out from the shock. Thor was crouched before him, looking at him with concern.

“I thought you were sleeping,” Thor said, stupidly, eyebrows coming together in consternation. “I thought you were having a nightmare.”

Loki realized that he had been whimpering, tears streaming sideways down his face, trickling off his cheekbone. He had not known. And his hand still squeezed in a deathgrip around his prick under the blanket.

He did not know if Thor had noticed _that_.

“Go away, Thor,” Loki croaked out as soon as he could gasp enough breath back into his lungs and force his swollen throat to loosen. “Leave me alone.”

Thor didn’t move. “Loki, you’re crying.”

Loki could have struck him for that.

“Yes, I do that sometimes—what else do you want of me?”

Thor looked even more uncomfortable. “But you were…”

So Thor had seen.

Loki felt his cheeks heating, and he hated that his body chose that moment to give a tearful hiccup. “I did not realize _that_ was beyond the bounds of our agreement,” he replied. And the words should have been a cold reproach on Thor for invading his tiny sphere of privacy and stripping away, with a few careless phrases, the last dignity that remained to him. But instead his voice sounded weak in his own ears, enough to make him recoil, curling even tighter around himself. “Go away,” he repeated. “I hate you.”

There was a silence filled with nothing but breathing. And then, for a moment, Loki believed it had worked, as Thor straightened to his feet and scuffed across the uneven ground, toward the fire.

But then the steps came back and a soft weight dropped down upon him: Thor had returned with his own, larger blanket, and he laid it over Loki before lying down behind him and draping it over them both. He did not say a word, did not explain himself, only spooned up against Loki’s back before wrapping an arm around him. Loki was too confused and too in shock to try to pull away.

“I chose a terrible time to begin lying,” Thor said, a rough murmur against the nape of Loki’s neck. “But you chose a terrible time to believe me.”

The feeling of Thor’s lips on his skin made Loki shiver wretchedly, and his flesh grew only more confused when Thor batted his fingers away from his erection and enclosed it in his own big, warm hand there beneath the blankets.

“Thor, what are you…?”

“Shh,” Thor answered, and it seemed he felt no reason to explain himself any more than that. And Loki could not find the words to protest as Thor began to stroke him.

Thor’s touch was not gentle, but neither was it cruel. It was, in fact, just as Loki had once liked it best. Thorough strokes, diverting now and then to fondle his balls or scrape a fingernail down his thighs or rub a rough thumb along his slit. The sturdy weight of his brother’s body pressed against his own.

A thrill of heat kindled in Loki’s belly. In Thor’s hands, moving steadily along Loki’s length, what had been a cold and queasy pleasure became a bonfire.

But what did it matter to him if Loki wept as he futilely stroked himself? Thor had made his feelings—or lack thereof—quite clear. They were not brothers. They were not anything else, either. Nothing but enemies thrown together by necessity. Thor did not love him at all.

So when Thor kissed the back of Loki’s neck, something in Loki’s chest began to ache and burn, and his teeth clamped down on his lip for silence in these perilous empty lands. And when Thor’s arm wrapped around him, tugging him close so that Loki could feel the warmth of him on his back, he could not help but writhe. He wanted to demand that Thor let him go, that he stop _pretending…_

It felt so good it hurt.

After so long lacking, Loki could not hope to last, every nerve responding quick and steady. And when he came it was one great, powerful convulsion ripping through his body. Thor’s grasp on his prick—fine roughness slicked by the gush of Loki’s come—shot past pleasure and into agony until Loki keened, unable to hold the sounds inside. Thor clapped a hand quickly over his mouth to muffle his cries, and Loki almost welcomed it.

Then, when it was over and his body subsided Thor released him, both mouth and cock, but lay beside him for a while longer as breath and wits returned.

Loki could only curl there in silence, eyes stinging with yet more hot tears to join the ones he had already shed, staring out at the dark and blurred horizon. He supposed Thor expected gratitude. He supposed he should have felt some.

 “Loki,” Thor whispered.

Loki did not answer, instead gathering up a little wash of magic to clean himself of the damp stain on his bedding.

Thor had seen him with his fist around his dick, weeping, broken, humiliated. But it was not his flesh that was scarred. Not his body that had been ruined—what Thor had done had shown him that, his arms holding Loki against him as he bucked, his body beyond his control.

And now that Thor had shown him, they would resume their journey as if nothing had happened. He would go back to his mortal and leave Loki to pick up the pieces.

Loki hated him, more than ever before.

Thor said his name one more time, in a voice much less hopeful, and again received no answer. Then, indeed, he stepped back toward the flickering firelight, taking his blanket with him. And Loki released the breath he had not been able to keep from holding.

No, it was not his body that was broken at all.


	9. Think of Rain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Myth!Loki just wants myth!Thor to let him participate in, um, a very private action.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Voyeurism
> 
> Contains: Watersports. Mild humiliation kink.

Loki fully expected that it would earn him a sharp elbow to the ribs when he tried it, creeping up behind Thor where he stood and sliding both arms around him.

It would have been better if he could have claimed to be drunk. Quite a few things, among the Aesir, could be excused by drunkenness, from starting wars to ending up with one’s sensitive parts stuck in places where one really should not have put them in the first place. However, being drunk would also have made this… dangerous. For both of them. And then he would probably wind up with worse than bruised ribs.

And this was something that Loki really, desperately wanted.

Thor did not actually bash him away with his elbows but instead stopped cold where he was, arms pinned against his sides halfway through the motion of loosening his belt and unfastening his breeches.

“No,” he said, flatly.

Loki sighed and let his forehead sink forward to bump against Thor’s back. “Why not?” he asked.

Thor moved as if to pull away but Loki followed. “Hold your own.”

“I do. I have. I want to hold yours,” Loki explained, and as he did he managed to slide his hands a bit forward, a bit down, across the firm angles of Thor’s abdomen.

“ _Why_ do you want to hold mine?” Thor asked, a touch of petulance coming into his voice.

Loki smiled into the back of Thor’s neck. “Why wouldn’t I? It’s a very nice one. And you let me hold it at other times.”

Thor growled. “Loki…”

“Yes?”

“Why do you want to hold it while I…” Thor trailed off weakly.

“While you piss?”

Thor didn’t answer, instead just squirming in Loki’s arms, so Loki gave the question a little contemplation, or at least pretended to.

“Because you think it’s filthy, I suppose.”

That was true, in its way. It was one of the many things the Aesir thought were filthy, the whole delicious variety of which kept Loki thoroughly amused. He’d _earned_ the reputation he had among them. The incident with the goat was only the tip of the metaphorical iceberg.

But that was of course not the only reason. Loki had originally merely noticed that Thor wandered off a little farther than was really necessary to relieve himself, then wound up teasing and daring Thor to do so in front of him—shouldn’t be so hard, should it? They were both men, after all—only for Thor to grow red right to the tips of his ears and the roots of his rust-blond hair. Ever since then, the idea had been growing up in Loki, embellishing itself into an obsession, which happened often with the filthy things the Aesir turned up their noses at.

Loki already knew all about Thor’s cock when it was hard and being used for pleasure, but what of when it was not? Loki wanted to be able to say he had touched it during all its uses, even this most practical one. That would make it, in a way, even more _his_. He wanted to know that Thor trusted him enough to let him do that (one’s aim being no small matter, of course). And knowing that the very idea of being watched, of being _touched_ during that act made Thor flustered with embarrassment… that thoroughly cemented Loki’s desire.

In truth, by now—after so long of wanting and being denied—even the thought of Thor pissing had become erotic to Loki. The strength of the stream, the body heat of the fluid gushing forth from his bladder, the way he might sigh with the relief of release… Loki was sure that Thor’s cock would let loose a powerful torrent, not some weak little dribble. He wanted to see it, wanted to hear the splash on the ground, wanted to feel the hot twitch of Thor’s dick in his hand as he let go, wanted to feel… Loki brought himself up short. Did he want to feel it from the other side, as well? Could perverse, deviant Loki even enjoy the thought of Thor standing over him, massive and intimidating, preparing to drench him in it? Could he enjoy imagining how it would feel pounding hot on his skin? Loki smiled—it seemed he could. Though he would leave the reality of it to a time when they were nearer a place to bathe afterward, for preference.

“Come on, Thor,” he urged again. “I only want to hold it. That’s simple enough, isn’t it?”

They were off in the wilds, tucked between a cliffside and a stand of trees and far from any prying eyes. Loki could feel Thor beginning to waver for just that reason.

“If… if I let you, this once, will you be satisfied?” Thor said at last.

Loki grinned. He would be—at least temporarily. “Oh yes.”

*

So Thor let him. But it turned out to be not quite that simple, for even after his lips had said “yes,” his body refused to comply.

“I’m trying,” he said through gritted teeth when Loki made a little sound of impatience as he waited. Loki still stood behind him, arms wrapped around, but now he held Thor’s cock gently in one hand, the same grip that Thor generally used to aim himself, but Loki had batted his hands away so they hung limp and useless at his sides. Loki’s body was snug up against his as he peered over Thor’s shoulder—and Thor could feel the prod of Loki’s erection against his backside.

And Loki expected him to be able to go like this?

Of course, he’d had to go fairly badly when he’d first gotten up to wander off to the treeline, and the time they’d spent arguing had only made it worse. And Loki’s other hand caressing him low on his belly, rubbing a little, pressing subtly in and down… Thor gritted his teeth more. It was not a lack of need that held him back. The need was sharp and urgent.

“You will have to eventually,” Loki said, and Thor could feel the smile against the back of his neck. “I can wait.”

Thor was not sure _he_ could wait, though. He needed to go, he wanted to go. But he had hardly ever pissed where anyone could _hear_ in the last millennium, much less done it with another man’s hand on his cock. And now his body seemed to have resolutely decided that no matter how sharp the need grew, it would not let him relieve himself.

But he had already agreed, and he didn’t want to go back on his word. And he knew it was true—Loki could wait. The trickster was terribly persistent when it was most annoying that he should be. He would remain there with Thor’s dick in his hand until he got what he wanted or Thor’s bladder burst. There was nothing Thor could do but stand there, body squirming against his will as Loki held him, the feeling of hot pressure building up until it was almost painful and he could think of nothing else but how badly he needed relief.

“Why don’t you call up a storm?” Loki said then gently, voice a warm, moist puff of breath. “The sound of the rain might help to distract you.”

That was… not a terrible idea, actually.

 “Here, you just rest against me, close your eyes, fashion a really nice storm in your mind.”

Thor did as he was told, letting his eyes fall shut and planting his legs more firmly for balance. Like this it was a little easier to relax, but he still doubted he would be able to do what he had agreed to do.

Yet, treacherously, Loki was still rubbing idly at Thor’s abdomen, keeping pressure on Thor’s bladder as he went on, a soft murmur directly against Thor’s ear. “Just think of nice heavy thunderclouds ready to let down their torrent. Think of rain, good pounding rain soaking into the ground.”

Thor envisioned it all vividly. Rain on his arms, rain falling on his brow. The sound of droplets tapping on broad leaves.

“Rain to wash the dust away, rain enough to swell the rivers above their banks…”

How many storms had he wrought in his day? How often had he called up the dark clouds and brought them together? Curtains of lightning, white and blue and ripping through the sky, thunder like the world’s ending. He embodied the storm. The rain would always come for him—sheets of water rushing down rock faces, flooding upon the ground until all was fresh and wet and green, until all was wet and soaked through, splashing and rushing and flowing.

“Yes, Thor, ah, yesss—”

Thor realized only at Loki’s hissed affirmation that the splashing sounds were not all in his mind: the pleasure of relief rushed through him, funneled hotly down to where Loki held onto his prick while he at last let go. Pleasure—sharp and warm and simple, a sensation he had not fully attended to in years—stronger than the embarrassment, if not by much. And because Thor had had to go quite badly, it went on for what seemed like forever, with Loki panting and huffing at his neck, hardness twitching madly against Thor’s behind.

Thor’s face felt hot as Loki shook out the last drops and tucked him away, but he found he didn’t mind. As the intensity of the relief drained away with the last blush of shame, it left something else in its stead.

*

This was the time at which Loki would usually find it wise to flee. Though Thor had seemed not to actually _hate_ what they’d done because of Loki’s manipulations, that only increased his peril now. Through too much experience, Loki knew that whatever enjoyment Thor had found in Loki’s perversions only made the offense the greater.

And really, Loki had a sudden need to spend a few moments alone, perhaps behind a nearby tree, where he could more fully ponder the feel of Thor’s soft cock in his hand letting loose its steaming flow—the most powerful and honored of the gods giving in to him, Loki, though he’d had to fight himself, blushing and squirming… 

Loki tried to slip away quietly, releasing his arms from around the thunderer just as a rumble sounded in the distance, but Thor wheeled on him before he could escape—and Loki ended up pinned. 

“So, trickster, where are you going?” Thor said against his ear, and Loki could feel the rough of his beard, a tickling that drew him out of the shrill of alarm that blurred the thoughts within his head. Thor held him from behind, and Loki could not keep himself from struggling as Thor’s free hand dropped to cup him through his trousers. “Wasn’t it all you hoped?”

One-handed, Thor undid his laces and shoved fabric aside, and Loki had to bite his lip as a rough hand gripped him tight, drew his stiff prick out into the cloud-damp air—like this there was no denying he’d enjoyed it, was there? As if he could ever have done so.

Loki found himself thinking of the feel of the cleft of Thor’s firm buttocks, the warm throb as he let go. “It was,” he laughed, breathy, bold. If Thor would strike him down for it now, so be it. “Oh, it was.”

“You should let me hold yours now, then,” Thor continued, low and heady. “It would only be fair. But I doubt you could piss through this. At least not until I do something about its current condition.”

That was true, and Loki could feel his cheeks heating as if by fire. The confusion that settled across his mind only deepened as Thor began to stroke him. But it was impossible not to respond, hips rolling, thrusting into that hot grasp.

“Give in. You like this.”

He could feel the smugness in the rough grin that spread in the nook of his shoulder. This was in any case far more enjoyable than the day after they’d left Thrym’s stronghold—Loki still ached at the thought, in several places. But some part of him still held back… at least until Thor tugged him nearer and he felt Thor’s erection pressing into his backside, and that was enough to leave him panting.

Thor nipped at his ear. “Perhaps it will be easier if you think of rain.”


	10. All Pretty Ribbons and Satin and Lace

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thor has to impersonate Freyja to get his hammer back from the giants, and Loki thinks it can be done with Thor's natural endowments... with a little help (i.e., yet another fic with Thrym-related crossdressing).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Corsets
> 
> Contains: Crossdressing
> 
> Posting this now, lest I keep messing with it forever.

Thor protested at first, when the idea was suggested. Anger had burst in his breast like a sudden storm—and he had already been angry at the theft of his beloved weapon, so this was an escalation enough to make his clenched fists creak—and he glared around mutinously at the small group of friends in whom he had confided, hoping that they would find a solution. They hadn’t. This could not be called a solution.

“This will never work,” he growled. It was not possible that such a ruse would work, and trying to envision himself—the broad musculature of a warrior, the undeniably masculine face of a prince—dressed in the frilly finery the goddess had sent in her stead… discomfort mingled in with the anger rushing through his veins as he tried. It would be laughable. He could never… “The giant will never take me for a maiden, no matter how much lace you drown me in.”

But then Loki spoke up. “You can leave that part to me,” he volunteered, giving a grin that Thor would have loved to wipe from his face by force. He was somewhat gratified when the others looked at the trickster as if he had proposed to perform an actual miracle.

But then Loki had pointed out that, since there were no other options on the table and no one else was in any position to volunteer, the whims of Mjolnir being as they were, they may as well let him try.

So Thor had agreed. But he did not go precisely willingly; Loki was still clearly enjoying the thought of teasing him.

“What are you playing at?” he asked his brother warily once they were alone together.

Loki quirked a grin back. “Why would I be playing at anything? You need my help—yes, you do—and I have offered it.”

This was so outrageous that Thor could not possibly answer it. But it only firmed his resolve to himself to balk every step of the way. Let none ever say that Thor Odinson had let himself be put in dresses without the slightest protest.

*

There was no point, of course, in protesting at the dress. He had agreed to that by default when he gave in and accepted his fate of having to play the part of Freyja to deceive the giant; he understood that a bride must of course wear a woman’s clothes. But beyond that…

“I will be veiled,” Thor complained. “There is no need to…”

He had no choice but to shut his mouth as long, white fingers steadied his chin, and no choice but to hold still as a blade touched his skin and began to scrape through the warm soap froth Loki had placed there. He could feel the keenness of it as Loki wielded it deftly, so sharp that Thor feared even to breathe as it scraped across his throat.

Loki was perched on a stool across from him, eyes fixed and intense, focused upon his work, and Thor could only sit in silence and mourn the loss of his beard as Loki occasionally swished the blade in a bowl of warm water, loosing the shaven flecks of hair.

“It will grow back,” Loki said kindly as he finished, handing Thor a small towel to dry his face with. Thor’s fingers reflexively touched his own cheek, marveling; he could barely remember feeling it so smooth.

But now, certainly, there was nothing for it but to accept his fate, so he stood and stripped off tunic and leggings. And he was halted by Loki’s hand before he could reach for the dress that waited in its box beside his bed.

“Those also,” Loki said, and Thor stared in horror as his brother gestured to his smallclothes. He could feel his cheeks—so newly naked—coloring.

“No one will see those!” he snarled. “Why, by the nine, should I…”

Loki gave him a meaningful waggle of the eyebrows. “I think your new husband may be the sort of boor who’d give you a little squeeze on the bottom just to see. You don’t want to get so near and then lose your chance because of such an unimportant little thing, do you?”

Thus Thor lost that argument as well, taking the silken scrap from Loki’s hand with a thunderous grumble.

When Loki approached with the razor again, though, Thor had attempted to put his foot down. There was absolutely no reason, with a dress that covered him to his ankles—

“You will be wearing stockings, and you cannot wear stockings over legs that look like a small patch of forest. Yes, I am being cautious, perhaps more than necessary, but you _do_ want to get your hammer back, do you not?”

By then Thor was furious, truly furious, practically steaming with anger. It was a good thing that all he had to do was sit there, arms folded in protest, as Loki put the razor to his legs until they were as soft and pink and hairless as his face, and even a bit chill in the ambient air. He rubbed his calves together, finding the sensation strange. Yet his fury was unabated.

“Oh, don’t look at me like that,” Loki said, still kneeling at Thor’s feet under the weight of a stormy glare, as he helped him on with the stockings at last, rolling them carefully up to where they stopped at the tender middle of Thor’s thighs.

Loki had so far been careful not to mock him, but he paused with his fingers just on the lace-trimmed inner edge of one stocking, a smile tugging at his lip, and Thor could _feel_ Loki’s laughter, even though he made no sound. He felt gazed upon and measured and taunted, heat blooming uncomfortably through him in response to it… and in the end he chose to look away.

His eyes fell upon the box Freyja’s maids had left. And surely there were no more indignities for Thor to suffer. He gathered his resolve. “These preparations are pointless and they are taking too long. Let me don the dress now, if I must, and be done with this the sooner.”

“Impatient, impatient,” Loki said with a chuckle. “But these preparations will have been pointless if you don’t let me finish them. And there is yet one thing more before you’ll be able to carry off the dress.”

Loki stroked a hand down his smooth calf, up to the tender back of Thor’s knee, still smiling softly.

And Thor looked into his eyes, knowing already that he was doomed. He had agreed to this, and so perhaps it was best to just go with what Loki asked of him, to place his fate wholly in his brother’s hands, no matter how dangerous of a place that was to be. Thor shivered—though only from sitting there nearly naked, in stockings and slippers and silken underclothes.

Loki still gazed up at him. “Believe me, brother, it will be worth it. You shall be a princess any man would desire when I am through with you.”  

*

Obediently, Thor sat up straight as his brother slid the corset around his chest, for he had been shocked beyond all thought of resistance when Loki had revealed it. Perhaps he should have expected it, but he hadn’t, and now he could not help but stare into the mirror at it, for Loki, standing behind him, was completely focused on his task—adjusting it, smoothing it against his body, adjusting it again—and thus Thor had nothing else to distract him.

The corset was a soft blue color, just a shade lighter than the fabric of the dress, all satin and lace with ridges of heavy boning and gleaming ribbons on the edges, and… it was very pretty, delicate and feminine. And Loki was so carefully putting it on his body.  

His naked face blushed pink when Loki began to tighten it, as the corset began to pinch in at his waist and pushed the flesh higher on his chest into nearly the curve of a bosom. It squeezed him tight as a lover’s arms and Thor watched in breathless—Loki cooed and whispered assurances at him as he gasped, then tightened it more—breathless fascination as the corset shaped him into something that began to truly resemble a woman’s form.

He could feel the twitch of fingers as Loki tied the final bow in the lacings at his back, heard Loki’s quiet hum. He didn’t dare meet his brother’s eyes in the mirror, so intensely aware was he of Loki’s hand sneaking around to graze up and down the taut fabric, and even down to the bottom edge, slipping a finger underneath to check that it was not _too_ tight, his knuckles brushing low on the bare skin of Thor’s belly. The binding of the corset around him was like nothing Thor had felt before, and the sight of himself being bound in that fashion made his heart thump nervously in his chest.

When at last he could resist the temptation no longer and flicked his gaze upward, he found Loki staring intently at his corseted abdomen, the pale stockings that came up to the middle of his thighs… and most of all at the silken garment between them, which was far less generous than the smallclothes Thor was used to and that now felt confining almost to the point of discomfort. Loki’s hand hovered near his need, pausing not quite upon the bare skin of his hip, almost as if in surprised hesitation.

Inside, Thor cringed, his eyes closing in a wince, alarmed to have his brother find him _aroused_ by this experience. He wanted to say it was just the unaccustomed feel of the fabric, the—the tightness of the corset, the sensation… But Loki only made a little sound of satisfaction by his ear and dragged him to his feet. Back to the matter at hand.

“Arms up,” Loki said, brisk and businesslike.

Thor obeyed and told himself he was glad of that, that Loki had moved on and seemed content to simply slip the dress on over Thor’s head, and for a few busy minutes Thor let his mind drift as Loki fussed and adjusted and muttered his thanks to the goddess for having the foresight to send a dress with long, loose sleeves. (Thor wondered if he ought to feel insulted by Loki’s grumbling or oddly proud—surely it was a good thing that it was difficult to make him over into a woman, wasn’t it? In the end he settled for feeling a little bit of pleasure at offering his brother a challenge.)

Then the dress was ready to Loki’s satisfaction. But just when Thor thought that certainly _now_ they were done, Loki pushed him down into the seat again.

“Is there yet more you would do to me?” Thor asked, a choked laugh upon his lips, trying to feel the same eagerness to be done with this that he had felt when they began. And Loki barely deigned to answer, only rolling his eyes and putting a finger under Thor’s chin to lift it.

“Just one more thing, but an important one.” Loki appeared to size him up for a moment in the light. “Your hair, at least, needs little help from me,” he added, though he did weave a few small braids in and pinned them to wrap Thor’s head like a crown.

Then, from some place hidden behind him, he conjured a tray of various jars and pots, instruments and implements, and Thor understood. He swallowed.

“Here,” Loki said. “Look at me and stay still.”

Thor did as he was told.  

A bit of pale powder, a smudge of pink to his lips and cheeks. A sprinkling of soft, womanly scents that clung to his skin. And then Loki gestured to him to shut his eyes, bending close with a little brush dipped in some dark liquid.

With his eyes closed, Thor became powerfully aware of the thrum of anxious anticipation in his body, of the feeling of his ribs straining against the rigid boning as he breathed, of how tightly he was held. How every part of him had been stripped or painted or reshaped, over his protests, by his brother’s hand.

At last he heard Loki hum in approval, and he opened his eyes again. “I think you’ll do, now,” Loki said. “Thrym will surely believe we have given him our greatest beauty.”

When Thor caught sight of himself in the mirror, he could consider this nothing less than truth: he was gazing at a goddess, a princess wearing a look of wide-eyed innocent surprise. She was lovely, lovely enough that Thor found himself desiring her before it struck him that the woman was _him._

Loki had done good work. And Loki, a shadow over his shoulder, was gazing at him with that same desire mirrored in his eyes. A sweet burble of anticipation spread out through Thor’s constricted core… and he could not even pretend to himself that it was all because he knew now that Mjolnir would soon be returned to his hand.

Thor watched Loki’s eyes for a moment as they traveled across his body. He waited.

“There is one more thing,” Loki said, as if it were an afterthought. “You have the look of a maiden now. But do you know how to behave as one?”

And with that, the question Thor had been asking himself since Loki first offered to make this transformation upon him was answered. Loki had always liked such games; Thor should have known he would not let such an opportunity pass.

Thor only shook his head, though, and he felt that same anticipation spreading through him in waves as his brother slyly smiled.

*

It was but a minute later that Loki had his skirts rucked up past his hips, had him bent over before the mirror. Loki had urged him there and then as soon as he had him arrayed, skirts lifted out of the way, he had put his hands to the bared flesh, and Thor let him, the touch thrilling. Loki paid most attention to the parts he had turned womanly: he caressed Thor’s hairless thighs, fingers finding the stretch of soft skin above the stocking-garter and pinching hard enough to send a jolt of pain through Thor’s body, making him gasp against the squeeze of the corset. He rubbed his palms across the curve of Thor’s buttocks, letting him feel the strange newness of the silky slip of fabric that covered them before he shoved that garment down just enough. Thor’s cock—still hard, still achingly hot—remained trapped by the panties, though, and Loki played his fingers across it.

“I think we should leave these on, lest you make a mess on your nice new dress, dear sister. I’ll lick them clean myself afterward, if I must,” Loki whispered in his ear, sending shivers down Thor’s spine.

Then, after another careful adjustment of the skirt, folding it higher onto the small of Thor’s back and (Thor was sure) admiring the view, Loki began to prepare him, pushing the bunched ridge of silken cloth further down, the same fingers that had so skillfully transformed him now delving slickly inside of him, slow and deliberate, while Loki’s other hand under Thor’s stomach ran up the smooth plane of the corset, a pair of fingers finally sneaking into the bodice of the dress to rub against Thor’s nipple. “I think you do know how to behave like a maiden,” Loki said. “You feel as if you know quite well.”

Thor could feel himself blushing again at the words, could feel his body opening to his brother’s insistent touch, until he was breathing impatient noises against the arm of the dress, and the only thing that kept him from snarling out a few curses over his shoulder was that it would not have been ladylike. His heart leapt when Loki withdrew his fingers and instead grasped him by the waist, just where the corset cinched in. He felt Loki’s cock prodding against him, not quite entering him, just teasing in by the tiniest bit.

The sensation made Thor’s chest go tight, tighter than could be explained by the satin and boning that hugged his ribs, and he couldn’t help but moan, eyes on the mirror, on the goddess’s pink, wet mouth falling open.

The sight—and knowing it was him, Thor Odinson, who had never been called _womanly_ by anyone—was almost too much.

He was shocked out of the daze of lust the next moment by Loki’s hand resting on the small of his back through satin, and Loki’s low, urgent voice. He had to focus hard to understand it.

“If I do this, you won’t be virginal, going to your much-awaited husband,” Loki murmured, bending to kiss Thor tenderly on the shoulder, just above the edge of the corset. He seemed ready to wait, patient and gentle, until his brother gave his answer. “I won’t, unless you want me to.”

This should have been the last straw, Loki treating him as the delicate maiden he had made him over into, as if they had not lain together a thousand times, as if they had not bruised and bitten and battered each other when it suited them. Yet Thor, eyes flicking across the mirror to his own shapely form and up to Loki’s face, felt far too shaky to speak. All he could manage was an unsteady nod, and then, after a heavy gasp, a whisper.

“Yes, do it… do it.”

Loki wanted to fuck him as a fragile maiden, scented with powder, eyes lined dark and beautiful. A maiden who needed to be coaxed and caressed and complimented for her favors. And Thor wanted the same thing, no matter how strange and foreign it was to him.

He held his brother’s deep gaze as in one slow thrust he was taken.  

Loki’s length—hot and thick and sinking into him in shallow strokes working gradually deeper—seemed to fill him like never before. With his body so constricted, heart pounding at his ribs and fighting for each gasp, there hardly seemed room for his brother’s cock inside him.

And Loki seemed to know it, too, his hands stroking up and down Thor’s corseted body to hold him steady as he pushed deeper by force alone, stroking over the smooth, delicate blue of the dress that hugged tight around Thor’s form. Loki hushed and sighed, his own breaths strained. He bent over Thor’s back as he fucked him in a steady, controlled rhythm that seemed aimed at not mussing him more than necessary, all while drinking in the sight of the perfect goddess he had turned his brother into in the mirror, and the sight of himself driving into her. “Do you feel that, my dear, lovely princess?” he asked as he speared Thor again, plunging deep and working his hips in a circle, grinding tight against him until Thor moaned and shuddered, his arms upon the table barely holding him. “And you are—so, so lovely. So beautiful. I told you any man would desire you.”

Loki told him so again as he rubbed at Thor’s cock gently through the silken underclothes he had insisted upon—and Thor was spilling, whimpering, his knees going weak. It was only Loki’s arm wrapped around his tightly constricted waist that held him up, held him steady for the last few strokes until his brother also came, shoving harshly inside and letting him fully feel the hot, slick throb of it.

Thor might have known that this would be the outcome of entrusting himself to the trickster’s hands.

“Thank you for letting me deflower the Jotun’s bride before her wedding night,” Loki said in the afterglow, his voice thick and heavy with satisfaction, as he brushed a kiss to the back of Thor’s hand. And Thor tried his best not to let it please him too much, though the warmth of the emotion had already spread.

Of course, Loki then had to fix the damage done—taking a cloth to clean up all the traces he had left and touching up the makeup, daintily pushing Thor’s braids back into place, adjusting his dress once again. By the time Thor’s appearance was as unrumpled and fresh as it should have been, though, a thought had occurred to him. A great and mournful flaw in the plan that seemed all at once to threaten the certainty of regaining Mjolnir.

“How am I to disguise my voice, Loki?” Thor said. “I may have the look and, ah, feel of a maiden, but I do not think even a frost giant will suppose I sound like one.”

But Loki spared him only a glance.  “You won’t need to speak, brother: I will come with you, as your loyal handmaid. Which is a good thing, as I somehow suspect your voice will not be the only problem.” Thor frowned, but that only made Loki smirk at him solicitously. “No matter how sweet you are in the bedroom, how well do you think you would keep your temper in a crowd of ogling Jotnar? No, you will definitely need my help in that.”

Thor could not deny it.

He settled in to wait for Loki to prepare himself likewise, now slightly irked at the further delay. Yet it was over in but moments, the transformation that had for him taken hours of painstaking and tedious labor instead falling into place upon Loki in the space of a muttered breath: Loki’s form at once taking on new curves, his face suddenly softer, his tunic replaced with a simple, dark green gown.

Thor stared. “You could have done all this by magic instead?”

And Loki smiled. “I suppose, but what would have been the fun in that?”


	11. Sucker

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Odin is gone and Loki is on the throne. But Thor has gotten clever. (Also, he has a lollipop.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic is set after the events of Thor: TDW, so there be spoilers. 
> 
> Prompt: Oral sex
> 
> Contains: Teasing, and a somewhat silly concept, I suppose.

 “I thought you liked tricks?”

That was what Thor had said, with a smug grin and a quiet chuckle after closing the magic shackles on his wrists, and Loki had been thinking of it ever since.

At first, he had been wondering what had suddenly given Thor the idea that he was clever. Then he had begun to see it as the first sign of his impending doom. And now he knew: he truly was being punished for all his multitude of sins and crimes.

If Thor had become clever, it was a development that had surely taken place while Loki was locked away, specifically so he could be taken by surprise now. Thor had become clever, and he was using his newfound abilities for…

What was that thing, anyway? Some Midgardian confection that Thor had enthusiastically introduced to Asgard’s kitchens, and they had improved upon it. The little sphere of solid sugar in bright, translucent colors on the end of a stick—though on Asgard they had been made to taste less of false chemical syrups and more of godly nectar.

And Thor was sucking on one as he worked, head down over a pile of papers, which he was helping his “father” to sort through for matters that required urgent royal attention.

Thor was sucking on it, sliding the sphere into his mouth and letting his lips close around it before popping it sensuously back out again with a little chasing lick of tongue.

And that was what had changed: Thor _knew_ what a tease he was being when he did it, though his face showed no sign. Once he might have done such a thing innocently, with no idea of the state to which he was driving his brother. But now he was doing it on purpose.

The problem was that Loki had not been able to resist, for very long, before letting Thor in on the secret. But instead of being pleased that Loki had not in fact perished, the oaf had been _angry_ with him. Thor had almost throttled him before Loki had a chance to explain. And even after he had, Thor still would not let it go. So Loki was treated to the constant presence of an angry thunder god.

An angry thunder god who had learned a few tricks.

An angry thunder god who had had his perfect lips wrapped around Loki’s cock before—though it had been a while—so Loki could not possibly watch him right now without thinking of it. He could not possibly see him slurping at that damned piece of candy without…

The first time, Loki had not believed Thor would actually agree to do it, and it had indeed been difficult to arrange; only his brother’s keen sense of duty and fairness had saved him, for Thor had clearly gone into it with the resignation of one facing the unavoidable. That had dulled the pleasure little, though; Thor might complain, but in the end he knelt for Loki, knelt before him so hesitantly, as if having a cock swaying in his face was a source of bafflement the likes of which he had never imagined. Thor had wrapped his hand around the root to hold it steady as if it were a serpent that might strike him, and then, slowly, cautiously, he’d put it in his mouth, licking at the head as Loki tried to coax him to…

To do exactly the sorts of things that he was doing now without appearing even to notice, turning over the piece of paper in his hand and humming in vague interest. “It seems the Storm Giants owe a debt to Nidavellir that the dwarves require our assistance in collecting,” he said, sounding bored. Then he put his lips to the curve of bright, unnaturally red sweetness and let them slide back and forth on it, smearing the wet traces of sugar there.

Loki had let his brother in on the secret the night after his funeral. Almost giddy with the swirl of emotion—the pleasure of a good deception along with the unexpected wrenching tenderness of watching Thor weep for him—he had called Thor to the Allfather’s chambers and told him.

He had honestly been expecting a welcome, rather than having to ward off Thor’s fists.

“What have you done with Odin, you… you… you snake!” Thor had cried.

“I haven’t done anything with him at all,” Loki wheezed out when Thor’s grip let up enough for him to speak, however strained and thin his voice was. He’d have a sore throat for a week for that, he was certain. “Not that I wouldn’t have…”

Loki had honestly meant to spare his brother the cruel truth. It would have been so much better if Thor could have simply accepted Loki at his word. But he’d had to hear the entire story, teeth bared and his hands around his brother’s neck all the while as if for insurance against his tricks. So Loki had considered that he was only getting what he asked for and told him the entire tale, of how he’d come back, in the guise of a guard, ready to depart again at any moment after he’d secured his freedom, and how instead their father had found him out.

“He wasn’t very pleased with you, either,” Loki said hoarsely. “In fact, that’s why he did it. He said I may as well take it, as he no longer trusted either of his sons not to burn the realm to the ground. And since I was there, it may as well be me. He said a few other things about both of us, but you don’t want to hear them.”

“You are a liar,” Thor had growled, but his eyes were full of doubt.

Loki tilted his head, both admitting and dismissing the fact. “Yes, but did you think nothing at all would come of treason? Last time he banished you for less, and this time you insulted him far more gravely.” Loki had paused as Thor took this in, his brow knitting. “You must realize, brother, that as sons we are both terrible disappointments.”

And Loki wasn’t actually lying, as it were. It had infuriated him at the time—he had been _trying_ to send Odin into a bout of the sleep, and would have not been upset to simply kill him, but the old man had shoved him back with a forceful wave of magecraft. “Do not test me, boy,” Odin had snarled, sounding wearier than Loki could ever remember, and more like a lone old wolf that one would still not like to cross paths with in a wood at night.

And oh, Loki had been furious. But by the end of the conversation, Odin had handed him Gungnir and essentially told him that he would enjoy watching from afar as Loki failed utterly. And that he would return when the fires had died down.

So how could Loki refuse? How could he not take what he had demanded, when it was given to him? And then, because Odin had gone with no explanation, Loki had seen the wisdom in impersonating his adoptive father so as to avoid all the tedious suspicions he would have faced otherwise. Likewise, he had explained to Thor the wisdom of not being seen to return after a well-known act of treason that had driven a wedge between him and his only remaining kin and then to have Odin disappear and Thor take the throne.

“I doubt that would go over well,” Loki added. “I think we must both simply _deal with_ this arrangement, imperfect as it is.” And he didn’t see how Thor could complain, seeing as he had already told Loki—Odin—that he didn’t want the burden of kingship now.

Reluctantly Thor had acknowledged the truth of this, though he clearly still remained suspicious. (As well he should, Loki thought with a little pride.)

Loki never kept up the illusion in his brother’s presence, of course. That would simply have been too strange for both of them.

And ever since, Thor had been staying on Asgard whenever there was no dire threat to the mortal realm, and he was sticking close to Loki, serving as his assistant in all things, helping him to rule, doing many of the tiresome little tasks and smoothing over the little difficulties; Loki could almost let himself be amazed at how much Thor had grown into the duties of their rank in only a few years. Or perhaps it was how much his own skills had deteriorated.

He would think that Thor was only doing it, though, to keep an eye on him and to make sure he _didn’t_ let Asgard burn. Except that wasn’t it. Thor was clearly trying to torture him.

Once, several days ago, Loki had tried to respond to all the little things Thor had been doing by starting something between them—cornering Thor against the wall and whispering a few suggestions of  what Thor could do for his king—but he had been firmly rebuffed. Thor had informed him that he still had feelings for the mortal woman, and it would not be fair…

Thor was definitely trying to punish him.

The entire lollipop disappeared into Thor’s mouth, his cheeks hollowing, and Loki found it was impossible not to watch him. Even when he tried to turn his attention back to the words on the paper instead, he was conscious of the muted clacking of the hard candy against Thor’s teeth and the wet slurps as he sucked. Yet there it was, the turning of another endless, boring page of reports from the outlying regions of Asgard as Thor managed to focus on his work rather than on the object in his mouth.

Certain parts of Loki’s anatomy remembered far too well the feeling of _being_ the object in Thor’s mouth, and it was impossible to simply sit there—

Loki’s hands ached to tangle in gold strands like reins, to yank back and forth and hear the answering cries and moans. He wanted to have that mouth on _him_ , that tongue lapping heavy and rough over his heated flesh. Lovely blue eyes gazing up at him imploringly, lashes fluttering as his throat bobbed.

He clutched the paper until the edges creased and tried to shift subtly in his seat so as to lessen the pressure of his trousers against his now fully awakened organ. He glanced over, and Thor happened to glance back at him for a moment. But the thunder god only made a little sound of boredom and went back to reading and sucking on the piece of candy.

Loki was definitely being punished. The problem was, he wasn’t entirely sure what for.

He still didn’t understand what Thor was really angry with him for. He _hadn’t_ betrayed him, after all; Loki had in fact been perfectly obedient, right up until the moment he died. That loyalty had been like a gift to his brother, an apology that Loki had been unable to voice except in those final moments when even he was unsure, gazing up at his brother’s beaten face and wondering when he closed his eyes if he would ever open them again.

Yet somehow, Thor did not grasp that, and he was _angry._ Loki found himself annoyed.

And aroused, of course, because Thor still had the sucker in his mouth.

For all that Thor had gone to the task so reluctantly the first time, he could not stand _not_ to be good at anything he set his mind to, and it wasn’t long before he could reduce Loki to a boneless, gasping heap merely by pinning his hips against the wall and swallowing him down, rolling Loki’s balls in a cupped palm or a finger probing back between his cheeks. Afterwards, each time, Thor radiated pride as Loki tried to keep himself upright, feeling that he’d been sucked dry. Loki would have called Thor an expert cocksucker if he hadn’t been sure the title would earn him a few bruises at least.

Loki tried _not_ to remember that with each sound of sucking, but eventually the frustration grew too great.

“Thor, would you kindly _stop that_ , please?”

“Stop what?” Thor replied, and he had the gall to keep even the same bored tone, as if he could not imagine what he was doing that would displease his brother at all.

Loki had a sudden urge to get up and go yank the stupid sucker right out of Thor’s hand and throw it out the window, because that would be better than admitting that such a little thing achieved the same result upon him as base torture.

“Stop… toying with me,” was the snarl that he finally settled for.

For a moment, all Thor did was stick the sucker back in his mouth thoughtfully. But when he removed it, holding it in a loose hand, he turned to give Loki a look. The look was calm and thoughtful.

“When you fell, I grieved for months. You have no idea the number of tears I shed over you, trying to understand why you’d done it, believing that I had lost you forever, and all the worse because I could share with no one the fact that I was mourning someone who was more than a brother to me. Then it turned out that you were alive. But instead of coming back—instead of even letting me know you lived—”

Loki wanted to protest at that. It was not as if he could have simply clicked his heels together and skipped back to Asgard from the void when he found it hadn’t actually torn him into his component atoms. Once he’d smashed against the rock upon which the Other found him, his path was set and he’d had no choice but to walk it all the way. Even if he’d _wanted_ to do any differently, he couldn’t have.

But Thor didn’t let him get a word in. In that calm, determined voice, Thor bulled his way onward. “You had me find out like _that_ , and then you dropped me from the sky and stabbed me to avoid having to speak to me when I did not wish to oblige in giving you the fight you wanted. And then when all was lost beyond hope for your conquering army, you shrugged and gave in and let me bring you home without a struggle, as if that had been what you’d intended all along.”

At that point, not struggling had seemed the only way to retain whatever dignity he had left. And it was satisfying, being able to give Thor a little grin before he chained and gagged him, and watching his brother’s fury rise in response to it. But Loki didn’t want to mention any of that now.

“And then, in between repairing all the damage that our actions wrought across the realms, I was favored with the grief of knowing that I would never again have my brother by my side, because he had shown no remorse at all, no feeling beyond viciousness and self-interest, and had been condemned to eternity in the dungeons.”

Loki’s eyes narrowed. He could hardly see how the length of the sentence was his fault. That was something Thor should have taken up with Odin—and apparently never had.

“When I came to beg your aid, I was not sure whether I dreaded more that you would accept my offer and then find a way to hurt and betray me again or that you would simply turn me away in anger. I never thought that the worst danger would be how good it would be to have you beside me again. Our peril—the peril of all the realms—was too great for me to call it happiness, but despite our arguments I felt more complete in that short time than I had in so long. Only to lose you again.”

Thor fell silent then, and Loki found he was almost irritated; he knew Thor’s description of what followed _that_ incident would be just as charmingly maddening as the rest, and he felt robbed of the chance for righteous indignation.

But then Thor smiled, a soft, sad little smile. “So if I’m toying with you, it’s only because I’ve had the very best examples to follow.” 

Thor put the sucker to his lips again contemplatively, licking at it for a moment with savor.

“I have been thinking, perhaps you just don’t know what it feels like. Maybe this way you’ll learn.”

Loki wanted to bristle at the entire idea—Thor thinking to _teach_ him, about _frustration_ no less—but it was difficult to do with Thor again sliding the candy into his mouth, and this time leaving it there, turning his attention firmly back to the page he had been in the middle of reading.

Thor thought he had got clever indeed.

*

Maybe he had.

The truth was that Loki had not wanted the throne. That had been one of the truer things he’d ever said. He’d wanted… oh, he’d wanted many of the things that seemed to go along with it, he’d wanted what Thor _had_ and he’d wanted to take what Thor _wanted_ , but he had never sat around and dreamed of ruling millions for its own sake.

He had certainly never sat around and dreamed of resolving the silliest, most pointless disputes that had ever been dreamed up by the foolish and greedy. Beady-eyed peasants bickering over the wanderings of livestock had not been part of his fantasies.

By a few weeks in, he found himself fully ready to start at least enjoying himself a little with his decrees, as recompense for having to sit through such nonsense in the first place. He had been about to introduce the two arguing parties to the rare and wondrous beast called the magical half-ox, and he had felt himself grinning a little over the idea, when a hand had come to rest gently on his wrist and Thor’s voice rang through the hall.

“My _father_ ,” he’d said, teeth gritted, “seems to be weary; we will return in a few hours. The other petitioners can wait.”

Loki would have complained more bitterly of Thor interfering with his fun, except that as soon as they were alone, as soon as Loki let the glamour fall, Thor shoved him fiercely back until his shoulderblades struck stone, and then he’d had Thor’s strong thigh between his and Thor’s arms, solid and stout, boxing him in.

“You will _not_ treat the kingship as a plaything,” he growled.

Loki laughed. “And why not? Odin is not here to stop me. And you don’t want it.”

But then Thor’s hand was suddenly on him, cupping him firmly through his clothes, rubbing at him until he could not help but rouse. “If you want _me_ , you’ll rule well. No matter how petty the issues brought before you are.” 

He’d made his point more fully by dropping to his knees, slowly loosening the laces of Loki’s trousers and pushing the leather aside. Laying his cheek on the hard line of Loki’s prick through the thin fabric that remained. Wrapping one arm around Loki’s thigh, hugging his body against it.

Then he simply nuzzled there, breathing exquisite heat through the cloth and mouthing wetly at Loki’s cock as if he’d fallen in love with it to the exclusion of the rest of his body.

Loki stared down at him, stricken, just as Thor glanced up, his lovely blue eyes wide and soft, his golden hair just waiting to be pulled. “And I know you do want me,” he murmured.

Loki would not have admitted to the sound he made then, except that it was not one of denial. And he could do nothing other than allow it as Thor drew him out into the air, fist closing around his length, lips hovering near.

His breath ghosted across it when he spoke. “So do you agree to my terms, brother?”

At first Loki was too choked by lust to answer. Thor gave a long-suffering sigh and started to pull back.

“Yes!” Loki said then. “Yes, yes, I agree!”

Thor nodded, his eyes falling closed. Then his lips parted and he took Loki’s cock into his mouth.

It was sweeter than Loki remembered.

*

During the time that Loki was imprisoned in the dungeons, the same while in which Thor had become clever, Loki had perhaps gone a little mad.

It had surprised him. He wasn’t sure why it hadn’t happened before. And he only became truly aware of it when he was released. He’d been grieving, they’d both been grieving, yet he had become so _giddy_ the moment he had his freedom again, it had to be a kind of madness.

He’d barely been able to take his eyes off his brother beside him, and the first thing he could think to do was a handful of little tricks, illusions, casting glamours over himself and over Thor, just for the way Thor growled at him, to make sure Thor kept _looking_ at him, paying attention to him—

It had to be a kind of madness.

And now, Thor was kneeling at his feet making industrious use of his hot, wet mouth, all attention focused on pleasing him. And Loki was the king of Asgard, even if no one else but Thor knew it.

What fun.

He’d never truly wanted the throne, but he had wanted _this_. Beautiful, perfect, powerful Thor—

Loki hadn’t had any idea how much he’d missed his brother while he was locked away. Thor had not once come to see him—if only he _had_ come to mock or harangue him, then Loki could have laughed and told him how futilely he was wasting his time and then hoarded away every furious twitch of his brother’s thunderous brow for later recollection, but he hadn’t appeared on the other side of that cell wall, not even once, and maybe Loki had gone a little mad from that as well, wondering why not and insisting over and over that he didn’t care.

But he had missed him, hadn’t he? No matter what he’d told himself.

That feeling was drowned under the giddy pleasure of burying his hands in that lovely golden hair, tugging upon the smooth plaits like reins, and Thor _let him_ , let Loki fuck his mouth, holding himself steady with hands tight on Loki’s hips… let him only for a minute before taking over the rhythm again—and that was just as well, because Loki was dangling at the thin end of his control and felt about to snap.

He had Thor again, and it was all he’d wanted, all he’d been longing for. Perfect, beautiful Thor sucking on Loki’s cock like candy, swirling his tongue around it and moaning deep in his throat, lashes fanned delicate and dark gold across his cheek… his powerful brother on his knees before him, pinning him against the wall to receive the pleasure he chose to give, after keeping Loki waiting for so long. It was so good, too good, and as the pleasure overflowed Loki heard his own voice just repeating his brother’s name, savoring the feel of that syllable in his mouth, his tongue forgetting every other sound.

*

“That was just a reminder. A taste, if you will,” Thor said with a wry smile when they’d finished, after he’d swallowed every drop and wiped his mouth on his hand, tucked Loki away and rolled backward on his heels to get smoothly to his feet.

“What?” Loki asked, a little dazed, unsure what Thor was saying

“If you want more, I’ll expect you to prove it,” Thor said, gentle but firm. “Show me how good of a king you can be. If I approve… you’ll have me again.”

Loki felt himself blinking back at him in surprise, his heart still pounding and the pleasant warmth still swimming in his veins.

At his lack of answer, Thor cocked his head, a perfect little crease appearing in his brow. “After all that’s happened, you don’t expect me to simply take you at your word, do you, Loki?”

Loki was still gaping when the door closed behind him. Part of him rebelled—Thor could not possibly think he was so desperate that he would give in to Thor’s demands, do what Thor wanted, just to… just to have…

Another part, though, was still reeling from the heat of that sinful mouth, the feel of his brother moaning as he sucked with single-minded focus, and how much he had missed being, however briefly, at the center of Thor’s world.

This inner conflict ended in a laugh as Loki sat down to try—in earnest, this time—to go through the stack of requests from the far edges of the realm.

There have been worse bargains.


	12. An Educational Venture

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thor has gotten in trouble with Odin, again. And been banished to Midgard, again. Loki goes to help his brother get back in their father's good graces.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Spanking
> 
> Contains: Mild humiliation, crying kink, random hippie bus
> 
> Note: I can’t say this is really in Thor: The Mighty Avenger continuity, but it was inspired by it, particularly Thor's predicament, the dynamic between the brothers, and Loki’s role in that story.

It was baffling that the Allfather had a reputation for wisdom. At least that was the thought that was in Loki’s mind when Odin yet again banished his elder son to Midgard and Loki was forced to follow, to intervene and try to find a way to at least ostensibly teach Thor the lessons Odin wished him to learn--because it certainly wasn’t going to happen on its own.

Of course Loki had been officially banned from such interference. And of course he didn’t truly care about Thor’s education; let him remain a fool, since he seemed disinclined to be otherwise, and anyway the perpetual state of discontent that stewed between father and son provided well for Loki’s amusement. But Asgard always quickly became distressingly quiet in the thunderer’s absence, and that Loki did care about. He found himself missing his adopted brother in spite of himself. So he went.

Loki found him on the second day of his banishment, already quite some distance from the place where he’d been thrown down. With a hand up to shield his eyes, Loki watched as the vehicle in which Thor apparently was travelling came to a halt.

It was large and garishly painted. It shuddered briefly, gave what sounded like the grunt of a dying bilgesnipe, and fell silent. A man and a woman jostled their way out of the door that had opened on one side.

“You fuel up, okay?” the woman shouted as she headed toward the little building at the center of the lot.

In the next moment, Thor emerged behind them from within the bus’s shadows. He gazed around, blinking. The bright Midgardian sun turned his hair into a halo of gold.

Loki waited until Thor had begun to follow gamely along after the woman before he stepped out of his own hiding spot and crossed the hot pavement.

“Thor!” Loki called out after him.

Thor spun, his face alight, and practically bolted across the blacktop, sweeping Loki up into an embrace as if they had been apart two years, not two days. Loki huffed for breath when at last he was set down again.

“My friends,” Thor said expansively to the man and woman, who were by then staring at them both. “This is my brother, Loki. Loki, these people found me where I fell, and they have been generous enough to allow me to ride with them on their way to San Francisco.”

Loki gave them a tense little smile.

The woman returned to him a vaguely suspicious glance, looking him up and down.

“How’d you track him here?” she asked. “I mean, we thought he had amnesia or something.”

Thor laughed. “I have all my memories, lady Moonbeam. I merely did not know where it was I had come to be.”

“Uh, right,” said the man. “I’ve had nights like that.” It had to be said: he had a somewhat hazy look in his eye and a permanent scent of smoke about his person, as if he’d been too near a bonfire. He scratched at his unkempt head, where the hair twisted and tangled into dirty-blond ropes. “Well, I guess your bro can ride with us too, if you want.”

“How kind of you,” Loki said with a nod. He didn’t expect to stay with them long, but it would give him a bit of time to take in Thor’s current situation and decide where to go from there.

After a few minutes, the bus rumbled to life again, refueled and restocked, and headed down the road, plus one.

*

Finding that Thor had so quickly fallen in with a little band of new friends was not a surprise. Thor never wanted long for companions, even when dropped in the middle of an unfamiliar realm alone and without resources. But perhaps that was part of the problem with Odin’s attempts to force lessons into his heir’s head the hard way: there never turned out to be much real hardship in it. Even in the old days when the mortals huddling around their fires were less welcoming to strangers—why, the last time, two centuries ago, Thor had been cast out in a nearly empty land where trust was hard-given, and Loki had discovered him a month later happily getting along in a rustic little village on only his skill with a hammer and his easygoing smiles.

Loki shook his head and sighed at the thought. Drop Thor in a wasteland and in the space of a day he’d have made friends as loyal as those he’d known for a hundred years. But _Odin_ was the one Thor needed to get along with and somehow the only one he couldn’t manage to please.

For a little while the clanking old bus rolled onward as Thor regaled his brother with tales of his adventures so far, the couple chiming in from the front now and then. But then, as night fell, the headlights from the oncoming lane flashing over them in brief waves of illumination, Thor fell silent. Pensive.

“So what is he angry with me for this time?” he asked.

Loki snorted. “Don’t you know? I’m fairly sure you must have been there when you argued with him over our policy with Vanaheim and suggested that even one of your goats could come up with a better arrangement. Really, brother. Your tongue must have hated you when it said that.”

Thor groaned and put his head in his hands, rubbing his fingers against his eyes. “Yes, I know. I know. Mock me if you like.”

“I will,” Loki said with a wry grin.

Thor rallied quickly, though. “So what is the lesson to be? Am I to keep silent a week to prove I know how to not say whatever foolish thing pops into my head?” he laughed.

Loki did not immediately answer.

That was what had taken him two days to discover. Loki _had_ long ago been banned from coming to his brother’s aid in times like these, so it wasn’t like he could go and simply ask the Allfather what it was Thor had to do to get back in his good graces. But while Thor was gone Loki was called upon to fulfill some of the duties of the crown prince, which gave him an excuse to be near enough—perhaps, if he guided the conversation in just the right ways without ever appearing to do so—to overhear Odin’s complaints and gather the gist of it. He’d gotten rather good at this over the years.

This time, he’d stood aside growing ever more nervous as the Allfather fumed about having raised such an _arrogant, insufferable braggart of a son_ , wondering just how he was meant to deal with that. If left to his own devices, Thor might be gone a century before he even began to figure it out. And Loki would likely go mad from boredom long before.

“Humility, I think it will be, brother,” Loki said at last, watching Thor’s face.

His brow twisted like a stormcloud. “Humility?”

“Don’t slay the messenger,” Loki said, hands lifted.

“But how am I meant to prove that?” Thor cried.

“That is the problem, isn’t it? But it’s one I may have an idea of a solution for, if you want to hear it.”

Thor frowned. “Why do I not like the sound of that?”

“Because you’re not the complete idiot that Father takes you for,” Loki answered. “Now, I think we really ought to make our own way from here…”

*

A few exits up, Loki spotted what he’d been looking for, and he leaned over the seatback as he directed Moonbeam down a few turns more.

It was a small, seaside town, the smell of brine in the damp night air, the rustle of palm leaves overhead as Thor climbed down from the bus, waving fondly to his new friends as they said their goodbyes. Loki stood already on the sidewalk, gazing down the moonlit path. They’d parked a couple blocks from Loki’s destination for simplicity of turning in the narrow streets, but this was all right; it would give them a few minutes to talk as they walked the rest of the way.

“Are we to sleep under the stars tonight?” Thor asked with forced cheerfulness. “Is that part of your plan?”

Loki felt Thor’s uncertainty, the sharp and unmistakable sense of tension in the form beside him.

“Hardly.”

But by then the dim neon of the little sign was just coming visible through the hedges.

_Vacancy_.  

*

For all Thor’s skill at acquiring friends no matter where he went, he was useless at other sorts of practicality, like managing to convince the inn’s proprietor that they were of a sort no different from the other travelers staying there. So on Loki’s insistence he hung back, poking through a rack of pamphlets with the names of nearby wonders written in large block letters at the tops and occasionally casting a frown over his shoulder—and incidentally helping not at all thereby—while Loki took on that bit of work for them.

Thor _was_ arrogant. That was the problem. Certainty of his own greatness came as naturally to Thor as did his optimism or his pleasure at a hard-won fight, and all his ever-loyal companions seemed nearly to encourage it in their adoration. Loki—well, Loki had grown up with him and had learned to tolerate it. It was how his brother _was_ , even if it was maddening at times.

It would have been nice, also, if Thor had appreciated the deeds of others half as much as his own, Loki thought as he stuffed the remaining wad of hastily conjured currency and appropriate identification back in his pocket.

When they reached the room Loki had secured for them, Thor immediately threw himself down onto the first bed, the mattress dipping from his weight. “So how do you mean to help me this time, brother?” he asked, somehow managing to sound both resigned and expectant.

“I’ve thought of two ways,” Loki said. “You could try Father’s plan. Down here, among the mortals, with no rank or title to fall back on—it would certainly rub off on you eventually. Though I was thinking you could make it happen faster if you were to try to make your way alone, so as to get a taste of what it is like to not be constantly surrounded by admirers. I know you could survive it, unpleasant as it would be.”

Thor made a face and propped himself up on his elbows as Loki took up a spot on the other bed, folding his legs under himself. “Loki, you came here to _help_ me, didn’t you? Not to tell me that you cannot.”

“I don’t think you’ll like my other idea,” Loki said. “I just wanted you to know what all the alternatives were, first.”

Thor’s frown grew darker. “What is your other idea, then?”

“Punishment,” Loki said, unable to stop himself from looking away, fidgeting a little. “Of the sort you haven’t experienced since you came only up to Father’s knees. If you could bear up through that, it would probably instill at least a bit of humility.”

It had taken Loki hours of anxious, pacing thought in his own rooms back on Asgard to come up with the idea, and he had dismissed it as impossible until he had exhausted every other option.

It didn’t take Thor nearly as long to work out what Loki meant. His eyes widened in shock. “Punishment? You mean—by hand?” Thor nearly laughed.

Loki shrugged. “I said you would not like it.”

Thor frowned. “And who would deal it out upon me? Are you saying I should go to Father and ask him to...”

The mere suggestion was enough to make Loki blanch, shaking his head with a firm shudder. “What? No, are you mad?” If Thor did that, then Odin would know that Loki had been doing as he had been specifically told not to do. Again. And then they might wind up down here together. “You can’t do that. You don’t _want_ to do that,” he said, insistent.

“Who, then?” Thor asked in confusion.

Loki gave another careful little shrug. It took Thor a moment, but he caught on.

“You?!” he burst out. “But why would you…”

“As you said, brother,” Loki replied, drawing himself up. “I came here to help you, and it’s not my fault if it’s not so easy this time. If you’d prefer the other way, I am just fine with letting you try that.”

Thor scrunched his eyes shut. “Let me think about it.”

Loki looked away, unconcerned. “As you wish.”

*

“All right,” Thor said a little while later. It was words spoken through clenched teeth, a hiss barely to be heard even in the hush of the soft, dull little room. Loki was investigating the mini-fridge at the time, though, so he almost missed it.

“What?” he said, popping his head back out of the chill flow of air and swinging the door shut.

“I said, all right. We can try your idea.” The jaw was still tense, the brow still twisted, but the voice was a bit louder. “What am I to do?”

*

That was how Loki ended up with the thunderer sprawled across his lap on a bed in a strange room on Midgard, Thor’s bottom bare and body tense as he waited for his brother’s hand.

Thor had tried at first to position himself against the wall, fully clothed, but Loki had shaken his head. “No good,” he said. “Over my knee.”

Thor had tried to protest. “Brother, no. That is too much. You can… strike me just as well like this,” he said over his shoulder.

“It’s not _about_ striking you, Thor,” Loki insisted. “It’s meant to make you feel like just a naughty child all over again. Yes, it will be uncomfortable. That is the _point_.” He could see Thor bristling; he went on quickly. “But it’s only me doing it. It’s only me that will ever know. That has to count for something.”

Thor had slumped then in acquiescence, even though he grumbled and pouted and glared at Loki when he patted his thigh in invitation.

He grumbled even more when he understood that Loki did not intend to spank him through the seat of his pants, but he obeyed anyway, unfastening his belt and letting his trousers fall to the floor and stepping out of them. And then he stood there awkwardly in his tunic (which draped over the pale skin of his upper thighs, just short enough to be entirely immodest; Thor had been wearing nothing beneath, either), arms folded across his chest.

“Is there anything else I must do?” he asked, slightly petulant.

“Ah,” said Loki from where he sat at the foot of the bed. “It would probably be a wise idea to think about why exactly it is that you have to do this. Just so you don’t forget.”

Thor only nodded, biting his lip. And then he took his place.

*

It was a strange position to be in. Loki hadn’t really expected Thor to do it, so he hadn’t thought it through completely. But it wasn’t like he could back out now.

The terrible thing about helping Thor when he was so routinely banished was that Loki was always conflicted. He _didn’t_ care about helping Thor to truly learn what Odin wanted to teach him. Well, mostly he didn’t. He enjoyed far too much watching Thor get himself in trouble with his temper and his impulsiveness and his pride. And each time, for a brief moment, his heart would leap at the idea that perhaps _now_ , perhaps _this time_ , it would be Loki who would be noticed and lauded, in the thunder god’s absence. But it never came to pass. And what did come was boredom, and… loneliness. Longing. A feeling that all Asgard was hollow and dim and colorless as he drifted through it. Even when he went to spend time with their mother, he found that the gaps in conversation that would usually have been spent discussing Thor’s latest exploits filled instead with… nothing, and that he had nothing of himself with which to fill them. So he went to help Thor to get himself home, knowing all the while that he would be pleased again in spite of himself the next time Thor inevitably butted heads with his father as if they were both mountaintop rams. It was, after all, the only thing that Thor was terrible at. Loki had to take pleasure in it.

He let his hand rest on Thor’s thigh, just above the bare curve of his ass.

Loki had never spanked anyone before, but he knew how it was done, from his own memory of receiving such punishments. Thor had laid himself across Loki’s knees cautiously, lowering his body slowly and turning his face away, trying not to appear nervous or even unsure… but they had not been spanked since they were children, and by now Thor would undoubtedly be dwelling on the anticipation, tension flicking through his body.

Loki felt him release a shaky breath; he could practically sense Thor biting his tongue so as not to command Loki to get on with it already.

That was reason enough by far to make him wait a moment longer, and Loki let his palm cup the perfect shape of Thor’s bottom. He hadn’t expected Thor to go along with this. When he’d come up with the idea, it hadn’t even occurred to him that he might be _here_ , that he might be the one about to give his brother such correction.

A peculiar, hot little thrill whirred through Loki as he lifted his hand and brought it back down all in one quick, smooth motion. It landed with a ringing slap, and it jolted Thor’s body, though Loki wasn’t sure if it was from his own force or from Thor’s startled flinch.

He let out his own breath and did it again, harder.

He had said it was not about the blows, not about the pain, but it would have to be intense enough to make an impression—just being laid across his brother’s knees with a bare ass would hardly make a dent in Thor’s nature, would it? To make Thor feel like a chastened child, it would have to hurt, would it not? If this was going to work, Thor would have to remember it.

The next time he did it, Thor’s flinch was undeniable; Loki brought his hand down a dozen more times like that until his palm stung, each blow a sharp crack in the quiet.

“You’ve been a very naughty boy, Thor,” he said as he let his hand rest, stroking gently across the blushing skin he’d just slapped. “You talked back to Father, as arrogant as you please. Are you sorry?”

Thor nodded where he lay, his face neatly hidden against his arm.

Loki frowned. That would not do. “Turn your face so I can see you and answer me properly.”

Thor did as Loki told him. “Yes, I am,” he muttered, his lips pinched into a line, the brilliant blue of his eyes sharp with flutterings of anger. That look said it _had_ hurt. But he was nowhere near there yet. Loki gave a little shake of the head and continued with several more slaps in quick succession.

Thor winced at each one, and Loki found it was better like this, being able to watch Thor’s face, see how he bit his lip to stay silent, holding tightly to his dignity.

Loki would have to do something about that as well, if Thor was to be humbled.

Loki struck harder, until he could feel rising heat in Thor’s flesh and until the reports began to echo in his ears. He also began to let his blows wander, seeking out tender spots. The top of Thor’s thighs, where the skin was pale pink and soft and where a sharp, swift slap brought something that was less a flinch than the start of a squirm…

“How does that feel? Does it hurt, brother?” he asked, beginning to feel just a little breathless.

Thor swallowed and nodded and made an affirmative sound, almost as if he couldn’t trust his voice not to catch.

Loki smiled and aimed at the tender spot again.

“Good. It’s meant to. You’re being _punished_ , Thor, and I’m doing it because no one else will give you a real punishment.”

Loki gave his ass another few swats, letting them drift farther down his thighs and all over the delicious, tight roundness of his buttocks, thoroughly covering his backside until it was bright red, every inch of it. Thor continued to flinch and squirm, the muscles of his broad back rolling, and he had started clutching his hands into the bedclothes, apparently to hold himself in place. No one had spanked Thor since he was five years old, and now here was Loki, laying into his ass, and Thor was lying there and taking it.

“And you are badly in need of a real punishment,” Loki added.

That was the first time Thor made a sound, something like a soft whimper.

Loki felt his chest tighten at that little sound. He had not known it before, but he did want Thor to learn. He merely wanted to be the one to teach him.

“Everyone else would let you go on being a spoiled brat, Thor, but I won’t,” he said, dropping his voice to an intense whisper that might caress Thor’s ears between slaps. “I will do this until you learn, even if it means your bottom is bruised for a week each time you err, because I know you can be better. I know you can be. Brother, I know how good you _will_ be, if only anyone will ever _make_ you.”

Thor was arrogant and selfish and he was letting Loki guide him. He _wanted_ Loki to do so; that was the only reason for him to still be there, squirming from the pain and the humiliation of being spanked on his bare bottom like a child, though he could have pulled away and escaped it at any time.

And his squirming—the warm weight of him was pressed against Loki’s lap so deliciously that it made Loki want to strike harder, faster, building up to some end when all Thor’s arrogance and imperfection would shatter all at once and Loki would be there to piece him back together…

Loki stopped, though, when Thor’s entire lower half began to wriggle as if to try to avoid the blows and when soon after Thor began to kick reflexively. The pain must have been intense to have such an effect—Loki knew that, had seen Thor stalwart against far more grievous wounds. So Loki stopped, letting his hand rub against the overheated skin. The touch made Thor’s body jolt with each slight motion, shoulders tensing and twitching in little involuntary spasms.

As Loki peered at him, Thor’s eyes squeezed shut and stayed that way. His wet, bitten lips parted and he began to gasp. Loki wondered if Thor would actually cry, and he felt a great blur of pleasure hum through him at the thought.

“If you want this to stop, my naughty brother, tell me why I’m punishing you,” Loki said, schooling his voice to a steady calm. “Make me believe that you understand. Make me believe you’ve learned your lesson.”

It took a moment for Thor to pull himself together enough for words to form without falling to pieces on his tongue. “Because I… I’m…”

His brow furrowed at the difficulty of voicing it, but he no longer sounded arrogant, no longer the prince who got everything he wanted. Loki could not resist soothing him, stroking down Thor’s backbone with his other hand, gently smoothing his tunic where it bunched above his hips. “Take your time,” he said softly. “We can wait.”

When Thor’s eyes opened and focused on his, though, they were dazed. “No,” he stuttered out at last in a plea. “Don’t make me wait. If you’re going to keep going, then just… do it.”

Thor sank down again, his fingers twisting anxiously in the bedclothes.

His bottom radiated heat, covered in hand-edge lines already shading toward purple. But he lay there—blond ribbons glued with sweat to his brow, the muscles of his strong thighs tensing, his mouth a sad, tender pout—submitting himself willingly to the punishment Loki had devised, and Loki had never seen anything so lovely. He gazed down at the twitching form and felt his heart thumping in a wave of utter adoration.

Loki raised his hand and began to strike his brother’s bare flesh again, rewarded this time with a bitten-off shout and a full-body jerking that stopped only with an obvious force of Thor’s will.

Soon enough Thor _was_ crying. Crying—not with childlike hiccupping sobs but just crying, dazed and shocked and silent, making barely a whimper beyond the sound of his strained breathing and letting the tears run down his face in a flood, inevitable from the pain. Loki wanted to kiss each one, and he never wanted to stop what he was doing to make them fall. He was shaping Thor into the perfect god Loki knew he could be, and it felt better than Loki could ever have imagined after years of being nothing more than a go-between, forgotten and empty in his brother’s absence.

Thor would be amazing one day. He was already beautiful now, but Loki’s eyes gleamed with the thought of what Thor could be.

*

Thor gripped the sheets tight in his fists as Loki rained blows down on his buttocks, each one jolting through him like a lightning bolt.

He told himself again and again that Loki was doing this for his good, because he loved him, yet shortly before the pain grew loud and insistent enough that he could not hold back the tears, he had begun to also feel ashamed.

He did not want Loki to look at him and think him _flawed_. He did not want to be as he was, a son whose father continually cast him out for his failings, an arrogant prince, an angry child. He wanted to be seen as good, as honorable.

He wanted Loki to love him. He wanted to be worthy of Loki’s love. He felt the bloom of heat that would later turn into a misery that would keep him from sitting, and it felt… it felt _good._ He _wanted_ to hurt, and it hurt in a way that was almost pleasure. He felt almost more ashamed of that, but there was nothing he could do to change it.

Tears ran cool over cheeks that burned with humiliation, and he squirmed and ducked his head and fought a moan. It hurt terribly, and Loki simply kept going, slapping him on that tender skin over and over with force. Like he was a disobedient child. Like he needed to have lessons beaten into him to learn them. Loki rubbed in the pain with a brief caress, and Thor bit back a sob, forcing himself to release the breath that had been building up in successive gulps of pain. There was heat shot through him, from spine to his fingertips, from his curling toes to the needy, swollen feeling in his chest.

If this was what it would take to make him worthy, Thor _wanted_ it.

*

“You’ll be better after this, won’t you?” Loki murmured to him, ending a firm smack with a lingering touch before pausing to let himself stroke Thor’s hair. “You’ll remember that even being the mighty Thor, crown prince of Asgard, cannot save you from what you bring upon yourself, won’t you?”

Thor nodded, his eyes wet and wide and edged in red, which only made them all the more blue.

Loki believed him. He gave Thor one last fond little tap before he stopped.

*

Thor pulled himself up unsteadily. He wobbled, his arms trembling as he pushed himself up and moved to shift himself off Loki’s lap. As he did it, though, there was no way he could fail to finally notice what had been prodding him in the flank for some time.

He gave Loki a hurt look, but Loki only shrugged. “What do you expect? You were squirming.”

This didn’t seem to help. Thor still looked offended. “You enjoyed that,” he grumbled, voice heavy with the accusation, as he tried to finish dragging himself away.

“Fine, brother, fine,” Loki laughed. “I did… just as you will enjoy this. Up on your knees so you don’t hurt your poor behind any more than it is.”

The distrust was still there, but Thor did as Loki bade, and Loki came to kneel up before him so that they were face to face. Once there he put his hands to Thor’s chest, stroking a little, rising to rub some of the tension out of his shoulders.

“I always miss you when you’re banished,” he said, as one of his hands dropped to Thor’s hip, rested there to see if any objections were forthcoming, and then delved lower, beneath the edge of his tunic. The backs of his fingers down the inside of Thor’s thighs. Brushing up against the smattering of soft, curly hairs and the sensitive skin of his balls. “This will soothe a little of the pain.”  

Thor swallowed but stayed still and let him.

Loki was counting on the pounding of Thor’s blood and the sensitivity of his flesh after what he’d just been through; a bit of pain had only ever put Thor deeper _into_ his body, rather than making him run from it. And he was not disappointed, Thor’s cock rising swiftly to his touch, stiffening as Loki’s fingers trailed up and down.

“Loki…” Thor said, uncertain and a little shaky.

Loki only smiled back at him, from quite near, and stroked him thoroughly from root to tip, twisting his fist a little as he did it. “Let this be your reward, brother. You took your punishment well.”

Thor’s only answer was to shift on his knees with a hesitant blush, eyes not meeting Loki’s—grateful for the praise, the affirmation. And that was so good that Loki felt his own breath hitch, his heartbeat speeding faster in anticipation. He shuffled backward, bent low, shoved the fabric of Thor’s tunic out of the way… and took Thor’s cock in his mouth, not stopping until his nose was buried in tight curls of blond hair.

Thor made a startled sound above him.

Loki would have grinned at that, and even more when Thor’s hands came up to tangle in his hair, had his mouth not been otherwise occupied. Instead he hollowed his cheeks and sucked, reveling in the feel of that hot flesh heavy on his tongue and in the memory of Thor sprawled across Loki’s spread legs, writhing, tears coursing down his cheeks.

Impulsively Loki reached down and pushed at his trousers and grabbed at his own prick, squeezing himself fiercely as he slid his mouth back and forth along his brother’s hard cock, trying to keep up his pace. And then—perhaps it was cruel, but he wrapped his other arm around Thor’s waist, pulling him closer. Letting his fingertips dig into the throbbing, bruised heat of one soft cheek, making Thor hiss and—and moan, and thrust down Loki’s throat until he could scarcely breathe but hardly cared.

He felt the pulsing of Thor’s cock in his mouth and tasted the salt of his seed and at the same moment he too was pushed over the edge, semen spilling over his fingers and dripping onto the sheets below.

*

Thor slept on his front that night, even after Loki traced a bit of spellwork to numb him where he hurt, and Loki curled up beside him, twirling a lock of blond hair between his fingers and watching Thor’s face as exhaustion overtook him.

“I meant every word,” Loki confided as Thor’s eyelids drooped closer to slumber.

“Hm?” Thor murmured without opening his eyes.

“When I said I always miss you when you’re gone. And when I said I’d be the one to make sure you really do learn.”

“Mm.”

Loki smiled. Then shifted closer, pressed a kiss to his brow. And, when he did not respond to that, moved down and pressed another to his lips. And…

Loki sighed. Thor was asleep.

Still, he lay there beside him for a little while. He would go before the morning, get back to Asgard before his deceptions could be detected and his interference inferred, but he would leave feeling sure that he had accelerated Thor’s return by quite a lot and being comforted by that thought.

But he had no doubt they would be here again. It wasn’t as if Thor would change just like that, from one round of simple physical punishment and a few more days in Midgard, when he had proved so stubborn for so long. He would be humbler for a little while, but he would fall back to old habits soon enough.

So of course they’d be here again. And Loki would keep his promise, with pleasure.


	13. Betrayal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loki will pretty much betray Thor every time his back is turned. Too bad Thor has developed a kink for that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Anal sex
> 
> Contains: violence, blood, injuries, unhealthy relationship stuff
> 
> Doubles as a fill for [Thor/Loki week](http://thorlokiweek.tumblr.com/prompts) day 6 prompt "favorite kinks."

Loki is going to betray him again.

Thor knows this. In a way, it is as if he already has; each time, Thor convinces himself that his brother deserves another chance. Each time, he convinces himself that he _needs_ Loki for whatever it is that must be done. Each time, he goes to his brother—in his cell or in his lair or in the wilds, wherever he might be—and asks for his help. When he speaks his need, he tries to believe there is steel in his eyes flashing like a dread blade to reinforce his promises that he will not allow Loki to betray him this time.

But they both know Loki will, and they both pretend otherwise for just long enough.

Each time, when Loki betrays him, Thor knows it is coming.

Loki is going to betray him, and still they topple into bed together. Loki is untrustworthy, his mouth is curved in the shape of a lie, his eyes glint with menace, and Thor practically squirms with anxious desire when Loki makes his breeches vanish in a flash of magic.

Thor is going to let his brother fuck him. Thor is going to let his brother betray him. Somehow these two things have got caught up in each other, and so when Loki slides between Thor’s spread thighs, kneading at the meat of them with his hands and smiling to himself at the sight of Thor’s cock bobbing urgently on his belly, Thor can only lie there, breathing hard and wondering how it will happen this time.

Each time, for a little while, they pretend to be on the same side, but only when Thor comes to him and asks. The first time he did it, he had told Loki how much he wished to trust him, and Loki had laughed in his face. Like a slap.

Now Loki stretches him with slicked fingers while he leans over Thor’s body to take his bearded jaw in his other hand, holding him still to kiss him. Thor kisses back with fervor.

He knows Loki _enjoys_ betraying him. He must; after this many times, there can be no other reason. Loki does not simply hate him—in these interludes, after Loki has given his promise and before he has broken it, they spend many pleasant nights together as allies, as brothers, as friends. Sometimes it is just like they are youths again and none of it has happened. They laugh together until Thor’s chest aches. They share their cups and talk. In those times Thor lets himself be truly happy, for it cannot all be a façade; Loki would not bother. Even when Loki’s anger surfaces, when they argue, when the trickster answers with bitter retorts that call to mind the bad blood between them, Thor knows that Loki does not hate him—or at least, he does more than simply hate. So it must be that Loki betrays him because he likes to do it.

Thor kisses his brother as Loki pumps his fingers back and forth smoothly inside of him, and he feels the barbed smile in Loki’s kiss. He wonders if Loki is thinking of it now—thinking of what he will do to break Thor’s trust this time.

Perhaps four times ago—Thor has lost count—Loki had promised to help him chart a difficult route in the pathless darkness of the dvergr caves, full of drops and deadfalls and vicious, many-fanged creatures drawn to any source of light, and only when Thor came to the most uncertain part did he turn to find himself alone, his brother disappeared, and Thor had wrapped his fingers around his rage, clutching it so that he did not wreck the cavern around him. All the way to the surface, as he fought and struggled, he imagined pouring his anger into a storm, one with Loki’s name writ into it, over how easy Loki found it to abandon him. He had imagined seeking Loki out, the storm still in his veins, to punish him for that. To let him know at last that Thor’s limits had been reached.

But that had only ever been a daydream. And even as a dream it had ended like this.

Thor will always come back, and Loki knows it.

Maybe that is what Loki likes. To enrage him, to see how far he can needle and push, how hot he can make the fire burn, and then—even then, after all that—to watch Thor reach to pull him into a kiss, for Thor cannot turn away from his brother, no matter what he might tell himself in those moments of betrayal.

Loki uses three slender fingers to spread him open deliciously, until he is loose and aching, until he is practically panting with need. He watches his brother’s eyes as Loki withdraws and repositions himself. Loki makes a show of it, deliberate and careful, making Thor accept every motion nearer to having Loki inside him. Loki takes his own cock in his fist, rubs the head of it against Thor’s well-slicked hole as he pauses just there, hips steady. Loki seems to want him to have no escape from his own willingness.

“May I, brother?” Loki says at last, in low and heated tones, just a little amused.

Thor groans out his answer, and the only sincerity in Loki’s smile is that he loves this—how Thor gropes for his brother’s body as Loki’s cock enters him, how Thor gasps at the sensation even after the long stretching.

Loki will betray him, again and again. The time after the caves had been worse. Loki had not simply abandoned him; he had followed Thor into the fight, as he had promised, and Thor had thrilled to know his brother stood beside him against their common enemy. But then pain had come from the side where Loki stood, and when Thor had twisted to escape it, it had been Loki’s blade he’d drawn searing out from his flesh. Loki standing there with blood on his hand and a tentative grin tugging at the edge of his mouth.

What Thor had felt then had not been anger, though. Shot through with shock and pain, Thor had felt the depth of the cut and the blood sluggishly flowing out to soak the leather of his garments, and he had _cherished_ the way it made it so he could feel each heartbeat. Each stinging thrill, each twinge between breaths. The satisfaction on Loki’s face as he watched Thor realize what had happened. For just a moment, they had both been aware of nothing but each other, the knife and the wound. Then the battle had snapped back into focus.

So Thor knows. Loki enjoys betraying him, and he enjoys letting Loki do it, because it means there is still trust between them to be betrayed, and deeper bonds. Loki’s darkness lets him see how much light there truly is.

Crooking an arm under Thor’s knee, Loki makes him bend so that he can fuck him hard, deep, and the hot ache of being filled forces a thin, strained moan from his throat. He lets Loki fuck him, and he loves it. And Loki… Loki does not laugh but kisses him again as if he would drink Thor down if he could. He kisses Thor and then his hand is in Thor’s hair, yanking at the roots and turning his head aside so that he can mouth at Thor’s neck, tongue and teeth on tender skin above his pulse. Loki holds Thor there beneath him as his hips move, rolling fluid thrusts that somehow jar through Thor’s body anyway, and he arches a little more, offering himself up to his brother.

This will not last, and that makes it even more delicious—they have already been working together for weeks this time, jaunting back and forth between realms (and he has caught Loki smirking every time some other ally of Thor’s looks at him as if he is insane to trust his enemy-brother again, and he has gotten used to gritting his teeth and not bothering to explain). So it won’t be long now. Loki will find some new and interesting way to leave him hollow and hurting and knowing that it is all his own fault, to fall for it again.

Anticipation curls tight in Thor’s belly.

Loki pushes back on his hands then, and his eyes rake up and down Thor’s body, hungry, before he licks his lips and tells Thor what he wants him to do.

“Touch yourself, brother,” Loki says, his voice husky with dark desire. “I want to watch you come.”

Thor could not be more eager to oblige, and he hisses as his hand wraps around his erection, fingers sliding at the tip, quick and almost frantic. He wants this. Loki wants him to come, and he can feel Loki’s attention fully on him as he works himself toward it—Loki is watching him wide-eyed, panting and thrusting unevenly, and Thor can feel from the hot swell inside him that Loki is close but holding off.

Loki likes him to know how very willing he is. How he eagerly takes part in his own destruction, how he makes himself vulnerable to his villain of a brother and lets him have what he wants.

Thor comes to that thought, and his body is still in the throes of it, tensing and twitching, when Loki shoves in deep and spills with a choked sigh.

Afterward, Loki does not slip away, nor does he nuzzle close; instead he sits back, leaning on one side, just within arm’s reach.

When Thor closes his eyes, letting himself bask in the moment, Loki toys with a lock of his hair, suddenly pensive. A fingertip brushes Thor's cheek. And Thor knows that in all likelihood they won’t be here again until after next time. Until after Loki has done it again and after Thor has gone back to ask for his aid once more, forever the fool Loki believes him to be. Forever the fool Loki needs him to be.

Thor is willing to be foolish for this.


	14. Rings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Obviously if you are in an incestuous relationship with your brother you can’t go the traditional route when exchanging rings and vows. (Thor and Loki kinda get secretly married. This involves body piercings. Blame Loki.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Nipple play
> 
> Contains: Mentions of blood in a body-piercing setting. Also an extremely fluffy ending. 
> 
> Note: Wow it has been a while since I've posted anything, yikes. But here is a first fic of 2015 for me. With any luck there will be many more!

Thor barely chokes back a cry as the needle pierces him. He lies on his back on the divan in his brother’s chambers, bare-chested, his tunic carefully folded and draped over a nearby chair. The pain is sharp, he feels a trickle of blood sliding down his skin, he grits his teeth—Loki is bent over him, dark hair mussed, murmuring and looking utterly absorbed in his task.

“Shh, shh, almost done.”

( _“We cannot even wear each other’s tokens.” Drunk after the wedding of a cousin they had stumbled home together and sprawled in Loki’s bed, and the bitterness in Loki’s voice cut through the glow of inebriation. Thor rolled his head to look at him in soft surprise._

_“I did not realize you wanted to.”_

_Loki huffed and shrugged. “Perhaps. It would be nice to have the option. But we don’t. One cannot wear one’s brother’s ring.”_

_Thor should have known right then where this would end up, by the stab of feeling that rushed through him. He'd answered that he would, if there were any way, he would, and that wrought a flicker in the trickster’s eyes._

__“Would you? _”__ _

_Thor had nodded again, fervent, and Loki had rapidly come up with a way._ )

“If this is our token, though, what do you vow?”

Thor doesn’t dare look down yet. It stings worse than it has any right to—Loki had finished the first with a series of mysterious movements then gone on to the other. The first now throbs. Thor is hardy against pain but this is such a peculiar sort of pain he finds himself almost lightheaded from it, from having to lie still as Loki does this to him.

“I vow to never again go along with your ideas,” he grits out.

Loki tuts at him, and Thor feels cold metal sharp against the tender flesh of his other nipple. “Truly? I doubt you can hold yourself to that, my dear brother,” Loki laughs. “How about a vow to forever cherish and defend me at need?”

Thor doesn’t answer at once, biting down on his own lip as he is pierced a second time. Shockingly, knowing what to expect does not make it any better at all. When Loki withdraws the needle and slides the smooth little curve of silver into the hole instead, Thor gasps in a breath and blinks, feeling dazed.

“Very well. To cherish and defend you. I do so vow.”

“Beautiful,” Loki says, tangling a hand into Thor’s hair and kissing him with some force, then leaning back to gaze at him fondly—or rather, to gaze fondly at his newly adorned chest. “Very lovely indeed.”

*

It is fully a week before they are healed. A week of avoiding the training grounds ( _“You don’t want anything even possibly tugging on them just yet, brother, trust me”_ ) and wearing silken shirts under the loosest tunics he owns and even so feeling the presence of the rings with every step and every motion. It is the oddest, most distracting sensation. The rings, no matter their small size, feel heavy. The flesh that holds them aches and feels warm and—

It is the third day after Loki stabbed the aggravating things through his nipples that Thor realizes it’s not just an ache he’s feeling. His nipples had always been sensitive—as Loki well knew—but now he has barely to brush a fingertip against them before arousal has shot through him like lightning, sharp and bright and powerful. It is maddening.

“You knew this would happen,” he complains to Loki, having barely avoided being seen sneaking away from the council chambers with a tent in his trousers from an accidental touch, as if he were little more than a boy again. "You  _wanted_ this to happen." He's almost sure that's true, what with the way Loki has been there to snicker at him each time. And to  _take care of it_ after.

“If it bothers you so much, take them out,” Loki says between long licks. “You’ll heal up in a day or two and be good as new.”

Thor rocks back on his heels, fingers gripping the edge of the desk behind him as Loki sucks him all the way down his throat. “Nnn. I should.”

There is a flash of hurt in Loki’s eyes when he glances up, despite his mouthful. Which is not fair, Thor thinks. But he doesn’t think it for long. It’s hard to think any such thing when his brother is fondling his balls with graceful fingers, sucking on his cock with a warm, clever, wet mouth… and when he’s watching it all past the sight of his own chest rising and falling with each breath, silver glinting prettily in the light.

Loki’s other hand creeps up, stroking the muscled plane of his belly on the way, fingers splayed, making him tremble… then up more, wandering. The hand soon finds its aim. One terribly gentle finger, barely touching, rubbing back and forth across the aching, sensitized flesh, and Thor cries out, feeling the jolt of pleasure there so strongly that he barely realizes he’s coming, cock throbbing on his brother’s tongue.

Thor sinks back boneless against the edge of the desk and Loki gets up, smirking.

“Good?” Loki asks, looking satisfied, licking his lips.

Of course there is no way that Thor is going to take them out now, even if it will undoubtedly be quite the inconvenience.

*

A week after that, when his piercings are fully healed, and after a few more such occasions, Thor somehow winds up tied to his own bed by his brother’s hand. His body is utterly bare aside from the glint of silver and the white ropes around wrists and ankles—he’s spread out, helpless, and the knowledge of it is a tremor inside him.

And Loki, still almost wholly dressed, having only removed his heavy jerkin, is perched next to him. And that fact makes Thor feel more vulnerable still, and a little bit confused.

“I do like it, you know,” Loki murmurs to him, stroking his hair back from his brow before leaning close to kiss his lips. One hand wanders down his neck, caresses his collarbone. “I enjoy knowing you are wearing my rings, even if no one else would ever guess who gave them to you or why. I like knowing that you belong to me.”

Thor feels himself pinkening, cheeks growing hot. They haven’t spoken like that for years—they did at first, when they discovered they were both in love with each other. They had claimed each other over and over, in every secret way. But they came to their senses; what they had would forever remain a secret, by necessity. No one can wear his brother’s ring. So they’d stopped speaking of such promises, both taking deep breaths and assuring each other that it was fine. That it was better, safer, more practical. That what they had was brotherhood, and pleasure, and no desire for anything more than that.

“I like it too,” Thor replies now, voice soft.

Loki smiles at him, kisses him again, traces a finger along the curve of a silver ring. Thor sucks in a breath, lets out a moan. When Loki pulls back the smile is turned devious, sharp enough to be worrisome if Thor did not so deeply love his brother’s trickery in such matters.

“Do you think I can make you come without touching you anywhere else but here?” he asks, both hands now at his nipples. “Will you let me find out?”

As if Thor—bound as he is—could deny him. As if he would. Thor nods.

It starts with only fingers, dancing across the muscles of his chest, tracing fingernails to make the gooseflesh rise. When the pads of fingertips begin to circle, Thor can feel his nipples tightening, the nubs turning stiff and even more sensitive than before. It’s different now. The weight of the rings arouses him, the feel of the metal there. He whimpers.

When those fingertips begin to pinch, squeezing flesh against silver, it is almost too much; he twitches and squirms involuntarily, and Loki sighs in pleasure in response.

“Ohh, do you like that, brother?”

Thor makes a sound that he hopes passes for “yes.”

“We’re going to enjoy this so much. I can’t wait to sneak up on you in the halls when no one’s watching and simply play with _these_ until you are a mess. The piercings make it so much better, don’t they?”

Loki tugs at them, then gentles, merely rubbing and caressing again. And it does. It feels so good, pleasure spiking through Thor’s body at each touch. He can’t help writhing in his bonds, and Loki’s voice goes on in a tender murmur that is in utter counterpoint to Thor’s moans.

“Oh, and I know you, brother. People will see these sooner or later, see them glinting on you as you sweat in the sun. They’ll have no idea who was so clever as to do that to you, but we will. I think I’ll get you fancier ones later. I’ll have gemstones mounted in them, and they’ll sparkle so beautifully…”

It ought to seem ridiculous, the idea of his brother getting him such gems, wanting to adorn him thus. It doesn’t. The possessiveness of it makes Thor’s breath catch.

Loki continues to rub and pinch and whisper until both nubs are red and swollen and so sore that Thor can no longer tell pleasure from pain, and only then does Loki lower his head, taking in his mouth first the left one then the right, bathing the tender flesh with the softness of his tongue, flicking at the curl of silver, sucking it gently into the heat of his mouth.

The sensation is so good that Thor cries out his brother’s name in shock. He can feel the pleased hum that Loki makes and the smile that comes to his brother’s lips.

Teasingly, eyes flickering up to meet Thor’s, Loki pushes the tip of his tongue through the ring. That tongue flicks and swirls against Thor’s skin, soothing him while fingers torment the other nipple. Both touches now send fire through him, even when Loki grins and puts his lips together to blow cool air over wet skin.

But also it is strange and new, having all pleasure spreading out from just those two points, the rest of him untouched and wanting, nearly aching with need. He hadn't understood the reason for the restraints at first, but now he does, as he writhes and moans and strains against them, focused utterly on what Loki is doing to him. His cock bobs desperate over his abdomen, drooling a puddle of fluid there, and there is nothing he can do about it.

Thor is also distantly aware that his brother is bent over him fully clothed but nonetheless almost undone; Loki has not so much as palmed himself but his breaths are coming fast and heavy merely from having Thor whimpering in pleasure beneath him. The knowledge makes Thor squirm.

“So perfect,” Loki says, voice thick with lust as he murmurs encouragements against Thor’s skin. “Let me make you feel good, brother.”

And Loki doesn’t stop, pushing Thor closer and closer to the edge. Thor is bound and helpless and Loki is going to get what he wants. And Thor wants to give it to him.

It is the gentlest nip of teeth that finally does it, sends him shuddering and jerking—the feeling of coming into open air oddly akin to falling, until he is grounded by Loki’s hand rising to caress his jaw and he turns his head, capturing a pair of fingers and sucking them into his mouth as the last of his orgasm hums and fades.

And then the fingers are replaced by his brother’s kiss, Loki pressed full against him, stroking him all up and down his naked form.

Thor pants for breath, nearly overwhelmed.

Loki grins, eyes dark and gleaming with satisfaction, and flicks a finger at a silver ring. “Tell me this was not the best idea I’ve ever had.”

*

When Thor is half asleep it occurs to him.

“What of you, though?” he asks, face buried in his pillow; he’s glad they are this time in his rooms, not Loki’s, as he has no desire to rouse himself to sneak away before the morning or any possible interruptions. “I wear your token now. Will you wear mine?”

When Loki does not answer at once, he makes himself turn.

“I’ve thought about it,” Loki says after a long pause.

Thor frowns, uncertain what such an answer could mean.

“I mean, I will. Of course I will,” he adds, seeing Thor’s look. “But I think we might not wish to choose exactly the same sort for me. It might cause comment, for us to be adorned alike.”

“So… then where?”

Loki grins.

Thor doesn’t believe that Loki will actually do it until, the next evening, he is handing Thor the needle and showing him how he is to do what needs to be done.

“It has to be you, brother. I don’t wish to go to someone else for this, and I’d really rather not do it myself,” he says, when Thor hesitates. “And anyway, don’t you want to?”

“It’s going to hurt,” Thor reminds him, brow knitted.

But Loki only gives him a twitch of a smile. “Be thinking of what you want me to vow.”

So Thor does it. Pushes the glinting needle through flesh, dabs away the blood as his brother bites back a gasp of pain, slides in the ring Thor chose for him (gold instead of silver). Loki is still panting too-quick breaths, sweat beaded along his hairline, when Thor speaks.

“Always to love me, all our lives. That is the vow I ask.”

Loki’s face is solemn and a little pale. “I will love you all our lives. I do so vow.” Then he smirks. “Also, I vow that never will I use this without thinking of you, even if I am alone.” With his eyes he gestures at the glint of gold just beneath the head of his cock, the metal piercing through the little ridge of skin.

“I would hope not.”

Loki laughs. “Just give me a week to heal up first.”

*

It is clearly not quite the same. If Loki has to wear silken underclothes while healing he makes no mention of it, and if he suffers the sort of discomfort Thor felt for the first few days he is better at concealing it. So it is different. But Thor can’t say he minds. At the end of the week he has Loki pinned on his back, and with one hand—with one _finger_ , the pad of Thor’s thumb rubbing circles over the delicate skin the ring pierces—he has his brother at his mercy.

Loki’s hips twitch, trying to thrust into a friction that is not there, that Thor will not allow him; Thor’s hand follows his motions, continues his slow rubbing. Loki whines and groans and begs, brow drawn as if this torment were pain. His hands clutch desperate at Thor’s shoulders.

“I have you where you are most vulnerable, don’t I, brother?” Thor asks, finding himself smirking, far more pleased by this than he had expected; it is so rare for Loki to forfeit control. He is yet more surprised when Loki only nods.

Thor had been entranced to see it appear from beneath the cloak of his brother’s foreskin as he grew hard, this little glint of precious metal.

“And unlike mine, no one else will see this, will they? It will be only for us to know, that you are mine, just as I am yours. Only we will know that you asked for this, for me to pierce you here, so that it can never be undone.”

Loki squirms and blinks, dazed, as Thor swipes some of the wetness dripping fitfully from the tip of Loki’s cock and uses it to slick his tiny strokes along that spot.

“And now you’re so sensitive for me. I hardly think you would last if you tried to fuck me now.”

Loki shudders at that. “Oh, but it would be fun anyway, wouldn't it?” He musters only a bit of the usual edge of mischief to his voice; mostly it is too thin with strain and too breathy to seem threatening.

Thor has been imagining that as well. But it can wait. They will have years together—centuries, millennia—in which to explore every strange and filthy thing that they can do with each other’s bodies. For now he silences his brother by moving downward to take just the head of Loki’s cock into his mouth and suck. The metal is still slightly cool as he flicks it with his tongue, and it takes little more than that before Loki is thrashing, crying out. The throb of his cock as it spills is so heady that a helpless quiver of pleasure runs through Thor as well.

They sprawl beside each other only a few minutes before Loki’s fingers find their way to his chest and Loki’s laughter tickles his ears.

“Your turn.”

And it is so, for years. They are bound together in secrecy, the nature of their love hidden under the guise of kinship, but _together_ , and Thor believes that nothing could ever threaten that. Their future, as princes of Asgard, is bright.

Nothing could ever come between them.

*

It is years later.

It is the first time he has spoken to his brother since bringing him home from Midgard. In chains. Muzzled and shackled. And now, as Loki waits in the darkness of a holding cell it is the only chance he will have to speak to his brother alone before Odin lays down his sentence.

Thor almost does not take it. But he must.

He wants to know if Loki has any reason for what he’s done. He wants to know if his brother is still in there at all. But Loki answers none of his questions. Eyes him bitterly. Shakes his head. It’s only when Thor is turning away in frustration that Loki speaks.

“I have kept my vow.”

Thor spins. He cannot tell whether Loki is smiling or not. It is an enigmatic look, under hooded eyes.

“Have you kept yours?” Loki adds. “I have to say, I don’t feel much as if you’ve been defending me. I’d say you’ve been doing just the opposite.”

There is a hollow in the pit of Thor’s stomach as he stares back. He wants to protest. He _has_ defended Loki, as much as he could. Perhaps more than he should have, enough that everyone around him thought him a fool.

_“Loki is beyond reason, but he is of Asgard. And he is my brother.”_

But Loki would not understand that.

He also wants to yell that these battles—the _knife_ in his  _side—_ did not feel like love to him, but he clenches his fist around that thought and does not let it reach his tongue. Accusations will not help. 

“If you _do_ still love me, Loki, then cease this. Bow in contrition and agree to make restitution for your crimes, and I _will_ defend you. I will beg Odin to release you, whatever price he would have me pay for the favor. So that we can be together again.”

Loki’s eyes watch him as if from a long way away. “You believe we would be together again? You believe I would _want_ to be with you again?” Loki’s voice rises, his face contorting. “I love you and I _hate_ you, and if it were not for these chains I would kill you where you stand and go on for the rest of eternity loving your memory.” He stops himself with a sharp laugh. “Except Odin would kill me first. And he may well do that anyway. We’ll have to see if you even attempt to defend me then.”

It is a painful little smile on his lips as he turns away. It is clear enough he will say no more.

Thor feels ill when at last he departs and leaves his brother there in his cell, alone.

*

It should not have happened like this.

Months have passed since Loki’s death, and the loss still catches Thor like a blow to the chest often. Particularly in the quiet hours, when he is alone. It is as if they traded the vows they each made, one for the other, and thus it has come to this.

Loki died defending him. Loki’s last words let him know how much he was cherished.

And now—and forever—Thor _loves_. No memory of any evil Loki ever committed is enough to stop what Thor feels.

Sometimes he tries again to understand what happened between them. Sometimes he fears that it was because they made those vows to each other, wanted each other in a way that was not allowed to them and gave in to it. He fears that somehow this magnified the wrongs between them and at last caused Loki to feel as he did and to conceal it, until everything was broken, not to be mended until the very end. He fears that but doesn't believe it. Cannot believe it. There was too much happiness for that to be true. 

More often, not one to wallow in futile regret, Thor finds himself imagining how things might have been if whatever it was had not gone wrong. If Loki had lived and were beside him now. This night.

Tears drip down his face as he lies upon his bed on Midgard, and with one finger he idly plays with one of his rings.

(Of course he still wears them, his brother’s tokens.)

He imagines it is Loki touching him, teasing him, whispering to him. _“I’ve found some quite interesting jewelry in this realm. Shall I get you some?”_ Loki would surely make a nuisance of himself in his mischief, and the mortals likely would trust them both less for it, but Thor would not care. He would cherish and defend his brother, and love him, and they would be… they would be together. As they should be.

Thor’s nipples are still more sensitive than they ever were before Loki pierced him, and he rouses as he rubs at one tender nub. Loses himself in the fantasy for just a little while. He imagines Loki kissing him; he imagines pulling his brother close, spreading his thighs so that Loki could slide between them. He remembers well the feel of Loki’s cock, ring and all, entering him, and he imagines it again as he strokes his own.

His cheeks are wet anew when he finishes, and he wonders if, from Valhalla, Loki can see the glint of silver.

*

When he sees his brother alive again, relief swamps him. For three heartbeats after he discovers it is no illusion, he feels nothing else but a great, overwhelming joy. But he has no choice but to turn it to rage, lest he be completely lost.

“You wretch,” he cries, turning on Loki as soon as he understands. “You fiend, you betrayer! Show me what you have done with Odin, and if he does not live, so help me, you who I have called brother—”

Loki only sneers at him. “Oh, cease your prattling and put that down. Odin is still quite alive, more’s the pity. And it would be most ungrateful of you to smash me to a pulp when I’ve given up an enjoyable game for your benefit, just to warn you.”

With effort Thor reins in his temper. There is truth in what Loki says, though Thor can barely feel it. And there will be time later to sort out everything between them, though in that moment Thor can barely imagine ever forgetting this hurt, this rage.  

Then, hours later, during a lull in their mission to save all the realms from this latest threat (Thanos; Loki can never be accused of pure altruism), Loki looks him up and down, a question quirking on his lip.

“Do you… ah… do you still wear them?” he asks in a low voice.

Thor refuses to answer but he can feel himself blushing.

Loki laughs. “As do I.”

When it is over, he is fully expecting that Loki will disappear; inside his head Thor has already readied his anger, the accusations he will hurl at his brother when next, inevitably, they meet—Loki’s cowardice, his deceit, his wickedness—but it does not happen that way. Loki remains and helps clean up the mess.

“I have not forgiven you,” Thor grumbles at him.

“I know.”

It it quite a long time before Thor’s anger fades. 

*

Loki is gone from bed one morning, but Thor does not realize the reason at first as he lies there still half in a doze, arm around his pillow, sunlight crawling into the empty space beside him.

But then Loki returns, and he brings with him with a breakfast full of all Thor’s favorite foods—pastries like Frigga used to give them for treats as children, several types of Midgardian breakfast meats they both grew fond of during their time among mortals, fresh fruit ripened to a perfection only the eternal realm could ever achieve—and afterward Loki suggests a ride in the fields, and when they return from that Loki inquires what he would like best. Loki suggests they might soak in the baths, or open one of the special bottles if Thor is in the mood for mead, or…

Thor narrows his eyes. Such sweetness is not like his brother at all. Even these days.

“And what is the occasion for all of this?” Thor asks.

“No occasion,” Loki answers, with a shrug and an enigmatic grin.

Thor works it out soon after. Their cousin’s wedding anniversary was yesterday. So today is the anniversary of the day Thor made his vow to his brother. And this year would put it half Thor’s life ago.

The thought makes his heart clench. Not least because there were many times in all those years when he would hardly have believed they could be here now. Times when he knew what it meant to hate his brother.

Those times are long past now, even if they both still bear the scars.

What they have is still a secret, more or less, but only in word. Thor is king, Loki his advisor. They keep separate chambers, but their nights are rarely spent alone. The closeness of their bond is plain for all to see, even if its precise nature is obscured.

Thor thinks he could likely wear his brother’s ring now openly, if he chose. But he doesn’t. He remembers the sting of the needle. The blood. Loki’s devious smile.

That is and will always be what they are.

He wraps his arms around Loki's shoulders from behind, murmurs in his ear. “Since I’ve caught you in such a generous mood, whatever the occasion is, perhaps we should spend the rest of the day in bed together.”

Loki hums and turns in his embrace to regard him with a grin. “Oh? In bed only? How very unimaginative of you.”

Thor snorts and shakes his head in disbelief and drags his brother bodily to his chamber.

*

“Have you really… always thought of me, when you…?”

Loki’s answering chuckle is muffled against Thor’s skin. “Yes, Thor, I really have. Every time. It would be hard not to—who would think of less when they’ve already tasted perfection?”

Thor’s heart clenches and his cheeks heat.

“But, you’ve reminded me… _you_ have certainly gone along with my ideas many times, and still do. So I’m not sure I think much of your vows, brother,” Loki adds, playful.

Thor does not answer this time because Loki’s mouth is upon him and it has wandered down his neck and to his chest and has now latched onto an adorned nipple, and even after all this time that is still enough to distract Thor from almost anything else. Not to mention that he’s already pondering what he will do two weeks from now, on the anniversary of the day that Loki made his vows.

Then Loki settles between Thor’s thighs as if it were his favorite place in all the realms to be, and Thor buries his hands in his brother’s hair to pull him close.

They still have the rest of their lives together. And Thor feels certain that it will be good.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’ve always thought Loki would have fun with a frenum piercing. He would probably do many inadvisable things with it too.


	15. Just a Little Horsing Around

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the incident with the builder's horse, Loki doesn't hold up quite as well as he would like others to think. It's up to Thor to help him, with the help of a bit of ginger.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: D/s
> 
> Contains: The mythological events with the Jotun builder, involving Loki/Svaðilfari, are integral to the story, so there are mentions of that and all it implies (i.e., quasi-bestiality, consent issues, pregnancy, and eight-legged horse babies). Also contains figging, pony play, bondage, whipping, gags, violent sex, angst, emotional trauma, shame, h/c, praise kink, and one really awful pun. I think that's all the big ones. 
> 
> This fic served as an excuse for me to write a particular permutation of dom!Thor and masochist!sub!Loki that I've been having fun with these days. 
> 
> Also, it may not be completely polished, but I really need to break this streak of not finishing/posting anything in forever, so please forgive any rough edges (and general wtfery). I wish I could have posted it on Mother's Day. Alas.

Two months had passed since Loki shifted back to his accustomed form after his extended absence, and Asgard still hadn’t gotten over it. That was why when Loki returned to his own chambers one day to be greeted by the piquant scent on the air, he thought at first that it must be a prank, a trick.

It was, by itself, a pleasant odor. A mingling of ginger and apples was the strongest scent, fresh and spicy-sweet in his nostrils as he closed the door, brows knitting in concern—but he was certainly not about to be driven away from his own rooms by someone with a poor idea of a joke. As he took a few more cautious steps within he picked up the subtler scent beneath it, the sun-bright odor of sweet hay, hints of the red oils used to keep leather supple and strong, and traces of grass and earth underlying it all.

It was, in total, very reminiscent of the scent of a well-kept stable.

Loki closed his eyes and gritted his teeth in silence for a moment, preparing himself, then let his expression smooth into a calm and unruffled smirk as he prepared to round the corner into the main room, where he would no doubt encounter whoever it was who had thought this the height of cleverness.

 _“Is that the best you can do?”_ he would say, with a sardonic twist of the mouth and a glance around at whatever amusements they had prepared, judging it and finding it a weak and pathetic effort. _“And all the trouble you’ve gone to. Tsk.”_

He was fully prepared for that.

Instead it was Thor sitting there with a slim paring knife in his hand, a few fragrant pale chips of what he had been carving on the floor before him. He looked up.

“There you are. You’ve kept me waiting.”

Thor was dressed for riding, without armor but in a fine well-fitted tunic and a light coat, tall boots gleaming. His golden hair was tied back, secure but graceful, with a few small braids. The apple scent came from the half-eaten fruit that sat on the table beside him, and in taking note of it Loki also spotted the handle of a crop leaned against the little table, and the saddle bag set nearby, containing who knew what. Laid out before him, likewise, was a thick soft wolf-skin on the floor.

Thor watched him, looking pleased as Loki blinked in sudden uncertainty, his understanding of the situation thrown all to Hel.

“Thor?”

Then Thor gave him a radiant grin. “Strip for me, please, brother.”

*

Loki had never been one to back down from a challenge.

It had been only two months, and he still dreamed at night, vividly, of cantering wild across green fields. It had been long enough that the lingering physical effects were gone—no matter the shift in forms, his body had remembered that he had just borne a child well enough to make him ache in strange places and to make his chest tender for a time—and the occasional lingering equine instinct in his mind had faded likewise. None of that would have bothered him, and he spent several hours each day visiting Sleipnir in his stall and feeling fondly toward him, making sure that he was well cared for. The little colt with his eight knobby knees still recognized Loki as his mother, and Loki fully meant to give his child the best life he could. He had been gratified also to find that his family had not batted an eyelash when he returned with the full tale of his absence.

The rest of Asgard had been far less accepting, though, and Loki found that being the butt of every joke was more wearying than childbirth.

*

Loki swiftly obeyed, a nearly electric charge coursing through him at Thor’s words.

It had been months since they had played such games. Since he’d come home, he had at first been too exhausted and sore, and then too irritated and expending all his energy to hide it and pretend otherwise. And before the builder arrived it had been some time since they’d been together like this, simply by chance of the princes’ schedules. 

So now Loki kept his head high as he stripped off his own jacket and toed off his own boots and undid the line of fastenings on his tunic.

“And what sort of game did you have planned for us?” Loki asked calmly.

Thor smirked. “I think you can guess.”

Of course Loki could.

“I never knew you took such pride in your horsemanship, brother,” Loki replied as he reached his belt. “I can think of several ways I could have indulged you, had you but asked.”

Thor, however, only watched as Loki’s breeches joined the rest of the crumpled pile of his clothes and he was left fully bare. He stood with legs shoulder-width and hands folded casually in front of his nakedness. Thor took another bite of apple, savoring it as his eyes wandered over Loki’s form, licking the juice off his fingers when he was finished.

“I’m sure you can, but I have some ideas of my own that I’d like to try, if you’re willing.”

Loki’s gaze traveled again over the half-eaten apple, the crop, the mysterious bag—no, he had never been one to back down from a challenge, particularly when it came from his brother.

“Your steed awaits your command,” he answered, unable to hold back the smirk.

*

One time they’d played one of these games, Thor had resorted to tying him to the bed.

The problem was that Loki was torn. Obedience was not in his nature. If given an order to do something he had already intended to do, chances were he would change his mind and do otherwise simply for stubbornness. But somehow when it was _Thor_ … when it was Thor, like this, it was different. Something gripped Loki from within and he would do everything he was told, practically falling over himself to please.

Until in some perfect contrary moment he had to stretch his limbs and disobey.

That night, the last time they’d played, Thor had wanted something sweeter than Loki usually gave, and he had ordered him to lie still, to not move and to let Thor do as he pleased. It had gone perfectly until it hadn’t, and it had ended with Thor sprawled atop him, exhausted and spent from the struggle as much as the sex, and Loki rubbing rope-burn into his wrists, still laughing, just because he could, because Thor had not yet noticed and stopped him.

Loki was always difficult. He always smirked and laughed and twisted, because he wanted to give Thor everything, and the feeling was simply too much to bear.

*

Thor got to his feet, glorious in his riding garb, and crossed the two steps between them. He looked Loki over almost as if he were indeed inspecting a new mount, gentle but assessing. He put a hand to Loki’s head and stroked his hair as if it were a mane.

“You say that, but you do not look much like a horse to me, brother mine. At least not yet. Shall we correct that?”

Loki met his gaze but stayed silent, something squirming in his belly, warmth flushing through him and making him want to shift on his feet as if this were his first time standing naked in front of his brother and waiting for his commands.

“To begin with, if you are such a beast, you should be on all fours,” Thor mused, and Loki understood the purpose of the pelt—softer and more forgiving than the floor would have been—as he went to his hands and knees, urged there by Thor’s gesture. 

He rubbed his fingers through the thick fur. “How considerate of you.”

Thor glanced at him. “Does my steed speak?”

“Nay,” Loki replied, grinning and unable to resist.

That was, however, the last thing he said before Thor fitted him with his bit and silenced him for the rest of the evening.

As Thor pulled the little implement of silver bars and leather straps from his bag, Loki found himself calmly noting how it was sized for Aesir jaws, thus Thor had had it made specially for this. And then, before he could think any further, Thor was gently prying his mouth open and slipping it behind his teeth, fastening the straps behind his head.

It pushed down on Loki’s tongue like a heavy weight, and it somehow felt filthier than any of the times Thor had gagged him before.

“There we are,” Thor said when it was done. “And now for your harness.”

*

Thor worked efficiently.

It was perhaps that and the scents that first began to affect Loki. This did not feel like their other games, in which it was always clear that the end goal was pleasure. Thor touched him, drawing the harness straps snug around his naked limbs and torso and then used other ties to bind him in that position, holding him there on hands and knees, but it was _efficient_ rather than sensual. And the scents—it had only been two months, after all.

Of course, during the time he was in fact in equine form he had stayed well away from home, well away from any who might have tried to catch him and saddle him while unaware of his true nature, so he had never felt hands fitting him with bit and bridle.

But the scents, leather and hay and apple and earth…

It had been one of the strangest lessons he’d ever learned of magic, how much his mind changed when he shifted his form into that of a beast. He supposed it was necessary. His Aesir mind had no notion of how to fly, yet he did it perfectly as a hawk. His Aesir mind knew nothing of how to leap and dive as a salmon, yet that he did as well when in that form.

When he’d shifted into a mare to lead the builder’s horse away, it had all seemed the most natural thing in the world, luring the stallion to follow him and then allowing himself to be caught, letting the great beast mount him and rut him madly, hooves digging into Loki’s sides.

But he’d still been enough himself to grow nervous afterward. To feel uncomfortable twinges of shame and to be aware of what he’d just gotten himself into, to anticipate it all, dread pooling in his belly that no amount of running free through the green of the fields could dispel.

*

Loki only became aware that it was done when Thor patted his flank firmly.

“Such a proud and beautiful steed,” Thor praised with another pat, and Loki was just about to roll his eyes and toss his head to suggest, without words, that Thor might get on with whatever he intended to do, when Thor continued. “But I think you could be a bit friskier.”

And of course, the other scent still lingering in the air was that of freshly peeled ginger.

*

Thor watched as Loki’s eyes widened slightly before he blinked his expression smooth and steady again, and all he could think was how fitting of a game this had turned out to be.

Loki was indeed a proud creature. Proud and stubborn—it had been nearly painful watching him these two months since he had returned, as he kept all his misery to himself, pretending he was not affected by the crueler whispers, pretending he was not still exhausted and distraught from the experience itself.

It had been painful to know that even if he had offered help, Loki would only have refused and pulled even further away, offended, to lick his wounds alone.

But Loki was also a contrary creature, and Thor had finally been able to stand no more.

So now he poured a little bit of the oil he had brought onto his fingers and brought them down to the cleft between his brother’s pale, bare cheeks, rubbing slickness over the furled entrance.

As he slipped one inside, Loki dropped his head between his arms, face going red, and Thor smiled.

“See, you seem friskier already, and I haven’t even put it in you yet. But you will hold your tail high indeed once it starts to work.”

*

Thor had worried while Loki was gone, sometimes terribly. He knew what Loki had planned to do, and while he reminded himself forcefully that Loki was plenty capable of taking care of himself and would undoubtedly come home in his own time, the fear had remained that something Loki had not planned for had happened.

Thor worried that his brother might have been injured somehow, or caught and kept from returning to his usual form.

When he’d heard some herdsmen’s tales of a pregnant wild mare that seemed too intelligent to be an ordinary creature (they had speculated that it was a witch in disguise, or some mysterious portent), a sudden twisting fear had formed in Thor’s insides.

And Loki had returned, and Thor found his fear had been correct.

“Were you willing?” he blurted out one of Loki’s first nights home, after the healers had declared him hale.

Loki turned to stare at him. “Was I _what_?”

Thor swallowed but bulled onward. “With Svaðilfari. I would hate to think that… that you weren’t.”

Loki flushed crimson and his face twisted horribly. “Have you ever known me to do anything I didn’t want to do, Thor? What do you suppose I was, if not willing?”

“Forced,” Thor answered immediately, with more anger in his voice than he intended. But he _was_ angry, angry that such a thing might have happened to his brother and no aid had come to him. “And if that is true, whether he is a beast or not, I would…”

“No, Thor, I was not forced. I was not _raped_ ,” Loki interrupted with a vicious smile. “I too was a beast at the time, and I _wanted_ it, and I _enjoyed_ it, and the only thing I didn’t choose was to become pregnant from it, but I hear that is often an unintended consequence. Particularly when one is a mare in estrus. So you can stop worrying about whether I was willing.”  

So Thor had stopped worrying about that in particular, but he had still been worried about his brother, who was not acting like himself. Thor was used to the presence of a sly, stubborn trickster, the shameless deviant who would take _more_ pleasure in an act because it was filthy and forbidden.

To see Loki flush red and try to cover his cringes at even a mention of what had happened... it felt wrong, and Thor wanted desperately to fix it.

But as Loki would not even speak to him about it, he saw no way to help.

*

Thor had come up with this idea, had the bit and harness made in secret by an artisan who had promised discretion. He had gone down to the kitchens earlier that day and managed to acquire a hand of the root he needed without anyone asking why. He had dressed specially for the occasion and prepared everything he would need, sneaked into Loki’s room an hour ahead of when he was expected home, and sat there peeling and trimming the root into just the shape he wanted, all the while hoping that Loki would not see the pieces of his plan and turn on his heel in mortified fury.

With Loki, it was always hard to guess.

But now Thor knew he had guessed correctly, and he picked up the finger of ginger that he had carved into the shape of a narrow plug, leaving plenty of the end as a handle.

Loki stiffened a little as the cool, wet tip touched him.

“Shh, it’s all right,” Thor murmured, patting Loki again with his other hand, stroking his dark mane.

Loki stayed still as Thor slowly pressed the ginger inside him, working it in easily. When it was firmly within, Loki shuddered, his ribs contracting on a sharp breath.

Now all that was left was to wait.

* 

Loki could enjoy the strangest things.

They had discovered this early in their relationship, but Thor hadn’t intended the blow to be pleasurable. To him, they had merely been roughhousing in brotherly fashion—as they had always done—and he had been shocked when Loki gasped and asked him to do it again.

Thor could understand the enjoyment of physicality, of pain along with exertion, but he had never before connected it with sex.

The understanding that Loki enjoyed being bossed around in the bedroom had also come later, and just as unexpected.

“But you hate being told what to do,” Thor had said, brows knitted, after his own frustration got the better of him one day in a snarled command… and to his great surprise Loki had rushed to comply.

Loki only shrugged. “Do I? Well, yes, I suppose. Usually. This is different.”

Thor had not been one to complain, of course. In fact it thrilled him, guiltily at first but with growing surety, to be the one dealing out orders between them, standing over his wily little brother and making him do whatever Thor desired. No one else could make Loki obedient, even for a little while. No one else could have the trickster on his knees, face red where it had been slapped, eager for more, his eyes bright and his hard cock bobbing below. Of course Thor could not pass that up.

He’d devised many such games for them since then, and some part of his mind was constantly on lookout for new things he might do to his willing brother.

He had not thought of the old horsemen’s trick in that light until lately, and he felt wholly embarrassed to have had the idea after some of the jibes he had heard spoken at his brother’s expense.

But Loki was a contrary creature, and it seemed like just the sort of thing he would enjoy.

*

It was nothing more than a cool discomfort at the start, the hard root slowly adjusting to Loki's body heat as Thor kneaded and squeezed at his buttocks with one damp hand, but Loki knew it would not stay so simple. He had heard of this—and not only from horsemen, but from some of the more adventurous in their personal exploits.

He’d never had it done to him, though.

It took only a minute for the sensation to begin to change, growing subtly warmer—and then vastly so. Experimentally he clenched, and then immediately wished he hadn’t, because the bit in his mouth meant he couldn’t even curse as fire roared through him.

He heard Thor chuckling, and opened his eyes to see that he had fetched the crop.

Thor started with a couple of sharp licks on one side, and from that brief experiment Loki knew enough to try to hold still, to try not to tense in anticipation of the blow, but his body refused to comply entirely. With each lick he could not help but clench at least a little bit, and each clench caused yet greater fire.

Loki was unaware that he had begun to squirm and writhe as Thor laid a few quick slaps to the other buttock, some hard enough to leave a bright red line blooming across pale flesh, some little more than taps that nonetheless stung and made Loki flinch.

The heat only seemed to build and build in intensity, unstoppable, but it was not the only sensation seeping from the plug. The other was a different sort of warmth that crept into his veins and settled into his belly in slow draughts, in building waves. And it was almost worse than the pain and the fire.

The dreadful root lodged in his ass had an effect of uncontrollable arousal, and Loki _needed_ to come more than he ever had before. He was more than hard, a heaviness throbbing painfully in his cock. His balls ached, full with the desperate need to spill.

But Thor—and Loki could have cursed _him_ in that moment—offered no means of relief, nothing to soothe him, not even a distraction as he continued with the crop. All Loki could do was whimper, hips twitching and bucking helplessly, ass burning, loins on fire, needing to have his cock buried in wet heat, or simply to feel a hand upon him, he could not care, something, _something_ —but too far gone to think of a way to get it. He felt he might go mad. He felt like a mindless beast in truth. He forced back the memory of the sensation of being in heat, of wanting to be _—_

“My, what a lively mount you have turned out to be,” Thor teased.

Loki imagined how he must look—trussed up like a horse, fig of ginger poking from between his cheeks, squirming hopelessly while his cock dripped precome onto the fur beneath him—and a flush of wretched humiliation was added to the fire. 

*

The least of the insults was his new kenning among the people. Where before he had been silvertongue and lie-smith and sly one, there was now great delight in referring to him as mother of Sleipnir.

Everyone knew what that meant, and there were other, cruder terms used, though less often to his face.

On one memorable occasion, a man had asked if he now preferred stallion’s prick.

Answering with the rage he felt would have been the most foolish thing he could have done—letting them know they had struck a nerve, showing them all the better where to hit next time—but offering only cool indifference galled him, caught in his throat and threatened to make him ill, welling up into a choked scream the moment he escaped.

There were days when it stayed with him, that choked feeling, as he went to visit his son, and he would go through the usual motions with a hollowness in his bones, making him feel weak and light as if he might crumple or blow away. Wind roaring in his mind, Loki would brush and tend the foal and offer him a few choice treats. But Sleipnir would notice the change in him, bump his nose against Loki’s chest, blink at him with deep black eyes. Loki would flee soon after, uttering silent apologies in his head but unable to be near his child, the reminder of what he’d done.

Loki was not used to this, his own disgust with himself.

*

Loki didn’t know when or how the tears started. He had no idea why he was crying, either, though he wanted to believe it was the burning that had spread like liquid fire all through his insides, or the intensity of the frustration. Definitely not the shame, the feeling of helplessness, of being naked before the entire realm.

He had not wept like this in front of anyone in so long he could not remember, and he did not want to now, but he couldn’t seem to help it.

In the midst of a cluster of heaved breaths and sobs that sounded pathetic to Loki’s own ears, Thor threw the crop down and came to kneel beside him, touching him gently, stroking a hand down his sweat-damp back.

“Loki? Are you… Do you wish to stop?”

Thor did not know him very well if he truly thought Loki would call a halt for a little thing like this.

Loki managed to get control of his breathing and tried to look over at his brother with a scowl, though how it seemed with the tears dripping from his nose and his mouth pulled out of shape by the bit he could not guess. As firmly as he could, he shook his head and gestured in a general downward direction.

The little smile Thor gave him was ruefully amused. “Ah, so which one troubles you? Is the ginger burning badly? Or do you want to come?”

Loki tried to make a sound to indicate _both_ , but Thor only laughed.

“Yes, I’m sure. Just a little while longer, though. I’m not quite done with you.”

*

It was best not to argue, Thor knew. It was best to let Loki lie, if that is what he needed to do to save face. But this had gone beyond that.

Thor’s heart had ached the moment Loki began to weep, but he forced back the instinct to soothe and comfort.

Instead he traced his fingers over the pattern of lovely red welts on pale flesh, repeated the action when Loki’s breath hissed from the sting.

“I find you beautiful like this,” he told his stubborn, prideful brother. “Beautiful and deviant and unpredictable.”

Thor continued to pet him, stroking Loki’s trembling flank.

“Also, I am proud of you. You did what had to be done for Asgard, when no one else would have dared. So fearless, my trickster. My sly one.”

Thor smiled to himself when Loki sobbed around the bit and rocked his hips, as he pretended that it was the touch and not the words that affected him.

Or perhaps it was truly both at this point.  

“Yes, I will take care of you now, brother, because you have been so good and I am so proud of you. I’m going to stroke you, but be aware that later, after you’ve recovered, I’m going to ride you as well, because I too wish to know the feel of stallion’s prick, and I have gone to all this effort to make sure you are frisky enough for me.” Thor tweaked the end of the ginger between his fingers and grinned as Loki arched and groaned.

Thor leaned closer to whisper the next words hotly into Loki’s ear.

“I will order you to rut into me like a beast, to fill me with your cock and spill within me, and I will not let you stop until I am dripping with it and you cannot give even another drop. And then I will put you on your hands and knees again, and I will pound you until you scream, and then you can tell me how I compare.”

Loki, face still wet, nodded frantically, desperate pleading noises coming from deep in his throat. So Thor guessed he had no objections to this plan.

Loki whimpered at the first touch, and barely had Thor wrapped a hand around his swollen cock and pumped it twice before Loki’s body convulsed, trembling hard and spilling copious white ribbons onto the fur below. The heavy pulses lasted long enough that he gasped and moaned his way through several breaths before it tapered away.

Thor stroked only softly at the end, feeling a final few tremors rack him.

Loki collapsed almost immediately after.

*

Loki lay still as Thor carefully slipped the root from him and coaxed the bit from between his jaws. He shifted, mindlessly obedient, as Thor removed the various pieces of harness. 

Then he simply lay there, drained from the tears and everything else, and he was barely aware of Thor curling up beside him on the wolf pelt soon after, knees nudging against his.

He felt oddly as if something was missing, but taking stock of himself he could not figure out what it might be, so he put the thought from his mind. Whatever it was, he didn't mind that it was gone. 

Several minutes passed in silence.

It was long enough that usually he’d have expected some stirring from Thor, either to clean them up or simply his brother's restless energy. But instead, even with his eyes closed, he could feel Thor gazing at him.

“Stop that,” he murmured when the gazing continued.

“No,” Thor said, fondly. “I like to look at you. Particularly when you are as spent as this. You cannot complain as much, and you look as if you might actually be sweet—a feat you cannot manage while you are awake. So you go ahead and rest now, and I’ll watch over you. The riding I promised can wait until some other day.”

“Don’t even threaten,” Loki said, a chuckle bubbling up from his chest, and he realized he felt better than he had in months. “I mean to hold you to your words just as soon as I'm able. I am no tame beast, but you’ll enjoy it.”

And he kept his eyes closed but fumbled for Thor’s hand between them, gripping it in what he hoped Thor would know was gratitude.

Thor replied, “I’m sure I will.”

 

***


End file.
